System Administration Guide: Naming and Directory Services (DNS, NIS, and LDAP)

Effects of the NIS-to-LDAP Service on Users

Simply installing the files that are related to the N2L service does not change the NIS server's default behavior. At installation, the administrator will see some changes to NIS man pages and the addition of N2L helper scripts, inityp2l and ypmap2src, on the servers. But as long as inityp2l is not run or the N2L configuration files are not created manually on the NIS server, the NIS components continue to start in traditional NIS mode and function as usual.

After inityp2l is run, users see some changes in server and client behavior. Following is a list of NIS and LDAP user types and a description of what each type of user should notice after the N2L service is deployed.

User Type	Effect of N2L Service
NIS master server administrators	The NIS master server is converted to an N2L server. The `NISLDAPmapping` and `ypserv` configuration files are installed on the N2L server. After the N2L server is established, you can use LDAP commands to administer your naming information.
NIS slave server administrators	After the N2L transition, an NIS slave server continues to run NIS in the usual manner. The N2L server pushes updated NIS maps to the slave server when `yppush` is called by `ypmake`. See the ypmake(1M) man page.
NIS clients	NIS read operations are no different than traditional NIS. When a Solaris LDAP naming services client changes information in the DIT, the information is copied into the NIS maps. The copy operation is complete after a configurable timeout expires. Such behavior is similar to the behavior of a normal NIS client when the client is connected to an NIS slave server. If an N2L server cannot bind to the LDAP server for a read, the N2L server returns the information from its own cached copy. Alternatively, the N2L server can return an internal server error. You can configure the N2L server to respond either way. See the ypserv(1M) man page for more details.
All users	When an NIS client makes a password change request, the change is immediately visible on the N2L master server and to native LDAP clients. If you attempt to change a password on the NIS client, and the LDAP server is unavailable, then the change is refused and the N2L server returns an internal server error. This behavior prevents incorrect information from being written into the cache.