Chapter 19 Administering NIS+ Tables

This chapter describes NIS+ tables and how to administer them. (See Table 10–1, for detailed descriptions of the default NIS+ tables.)

NIS+ might not be supported in a future release. Tools to aid the migration from NIS+ to LDAP are available as of the Solaris 9 release. For more information, see System Administration Guide: Naming and Directory Services (DNS, NIS, and LDAP) and visit NIS+ End-of-Feature (EOF) Announcement FAQ.

NIS+ Table Administration

Information used by NIS+ is stored in NIS+ tables. (See Chapter 23, Information in NIS+ Tables for a description of each default NIS+ system tables supplied in the Solaris software.)

For a complete description of NIS+ table-related commands and their syntax and options, see the NIS+ man pages.

Using the nistbladm Command With NIS+ Tables

Some NIS+ table administration tasks can be performed more easily with Solaris Management Console tools if you have them available.

The nistbladm command is the primary NIS+ table administration command. The nistbladm command is for use on NIS+ tables stored in an NIS+ directory object. With it, you can create, modify, and delete NIS+ tables and entries. To create a table, its directory must already exist. To add entries to the table, the table and columns must already be defined.

To create a table, you must have create rights to the directory under which you will create it. To delete a table, you must have destroy rights to the directory. To modify the contents of a table, whether to add, change, or delete entries, you must have modify rights to the table or the entries.

nistbladm Syntax Summary

The general syntax of the nistbladm command is:

nistbladm options \
 [columspec | columnvalue] \
 [tablename | indexedname]

Where:

• columnspec is a specification defining a column to be created in a table as described in Specifying NIS+ Table Columns.

• columnvalue identifies a particular cell value in the table identified by tablename as described in nistbladm and NIS+ Column Values.

• tablename is the name of the table. For example, hosts.org_dir.doc.com.

• indexedname identifies a particular cell value in a certain table as described in nistbladm and NIS+ Column Values. In essence indexedname is the equivalent of columnvalue plus tablename.

nistbladm and NIS+ Column Values

Column values are used to identify individual entries in tables using the format:

columname="value", \
 columnname="value", ...

Where:

• columname is the name of a table column.

• value is the contents of a particular cell within a column. That value is what identifies a table row. (When using column=value to create or modify table data, always enclose the value element in quotes.)

For example, suppose you had a hosts table that listed machine names and IP addresses.

mail

In this example, your could identify the altair entry (row) in three different ways using the column=value of:

• name=altair

• address=172.22.168.4

• name=altair,address=172.22.168.4

But notice in the table above that the machine regulus is multi-homed and has two IP addresses. In that case, the column=value of host=regulus identifies two rows.

To identify just the first regulus row, you would enter either:

• address=172.22.168.120 or

• address=172.22.168.120.,name=regulus,dnsmaster

Some nistbladm operations require that you enter a column=value pair for every column in the table.

nistbladm, Searchable NIS+ Columns, Keys, and Column Values

When an NIS+ table is created, one or more columns are designated searchable with either the S or the I flags as described in Specifying NIS+ Table Columns. You can use the niscat -o tablename command to display a list of a table's columns and their characteristics.

A table is keyed on its searchable columns. This means that each row in the table must have a unique combination of values in the searchable columns. For example, if a table has one searchable column, each table row must have a unique value in that column, no two rows can contain the same value.

For example, suppose you had a table containing one searchable column named city and a non-searchable column named country. The following rows would all be permitted:

But you could not have two rows like:

If a table has multiple searchable columns, it is the combination of values that must be unique. For example, suppose you had a table containing two searchable columns, Lastname, Firstname and a non-searchable column named city. The following rows would all be permitted:

But you could not have two rows like this:

NIS+ commands use the values in the searchable columns to identify specific table rows.

nistbladm and Indexed NIS+ Names

In the context of table administration, an NIS+ indexed name is a name that combines a table name with column value search criteria to identify and select particular entries in a table. Indexed names use the format:

[search_criteria],tablename.directory

Note that search_criteria must be enclosed in square brackets [ ]. The search_criteria use the format:

columname=value, \
 columname=value,...

Where columname=value pairs are column values from the table's searchable columns as described in nistbladm and NIS+ Column Values.

For example, to identify the altair entry in Table 19–2 you could use the indexed name:

[addr=172.22.168.4,cname=altair],hosts.org_dir.doc.com.

The nistbladm -R command allows you to remove all the entries in a table by using the two square brackets with nothing between them [ ] as a wildcard specifying all table rows.

nistbladm and NIS+ Groups

In a Solaris-NIS+ environment, there are three types of groups:

• UNIX groups. Information about UNIX groups is stored in the groups.org_dir table. Use nistbladm to administer UNIX group information.

• Netgroups. Information about net groups is stored in the netgroups.org_dir table. Use nistbladm to administer net group information.

• NIS+ groups. Information about NIS+ groups is stored in one or more tables in the groups_dir directory object. Use nisgrpadm to administer NIS+ group information.

Do not use nistbladm to administer NIS+ groups.

(See Solaris Groups and NIS+ Groups for more information on the different types of groups and how to work with them.)

Creating a New NIS+ Table

An NIS+ table must have at least one column and at least one of its columns must be searchable. To create an NIS+ table, use the nistbladm command with the -c option:

nistbladm -c tabletype columnspec \
 ... tablename

Where:

• Tabletype is simply a name that identifies a class of tables to which this table belongs. You can use any name you choose.

• A columnspec specifies the name and characteristics of each column in a new table. Enter one columnspec for each column you want in your new table. Separate the columnspecs with spaces, as shown in the following example.

 nistbladm -c tabletype columnspec columnspec \ 
columnspec tablename

Columnspec formats are described in Specifying NIS+ Table Columns, below.

Specifying NIS+ Table Columns

Each columnspec entry has two to four components in the format:

name=type,rights:

A column can be one of the following types.

NIS+ commands search through the column and identify individual table rows based on the contents of the searchable columns. Searchable columns are designated with either the S or the I option. In database terminology, a searchable column is a key. The first column in each table must be searchable. The remaining columns do not have to be searchable. Because the table is keyed on the searchable columns, if you have more than one searchable column, they must be the first and subsequent columns and not skip any columns. For example, if only one column in a table is searchable, it has to be the first column. If two columns are searchable, they must be the first two columns. (See nistbladm, Searchable NIS+ Columns, Keys, and Column Values for more information on searchable columns.)

If you specify only access rights, you don't need to use a comma. If you include one or more of the -S, -I, or -C flags, add a comma before the access rights.

In the example below, a table is created with the addition of column-specific access rights applied to the first two columns:

master% nistbladm -c depts Name=I,w+m Site=w+m Name=C \
 divs.mydir.doc.com.

For more information about specifying column access rights when creating a table, see Setting Column Rights When Creating an NIS+ Table.

NIS+ assumes that all column entries are null terminated. Applications and routines that write information to NIS+ tables must be configured to null terminate each column entry.

Creating Additional NIS+ Automount Tables

If you are creating an automount table, the table can have only two columns. The first column must be named key and the second column must be named value. For example, to create an automount table named auto1, you would enter:

master% nistbladm -c key-value key=S value= auto1.org_dir.doc.com.

Deleting an NIS+ Table

To delete a table, use the -d option and enter the table name:

nistbladm -d tablename

The table must be empty before you can delete it (see Removing NIS+ Table Entries). This example deletes the divs table from the doc.com. directory:

rootmaster% nistbladm -d divs.doc.com.

Adding Entries to an NIS+ Table

To add new entries (rows) to a table, use nistbladm with either the -a or -A options followed by either one or more column=value pairs and the table name or an indexed name as described in nistbladm and Indexed NIS+ Names.

nistbladm [-a | -A] indexedname
nistbladm [-a | -A] column="value" \
column="value" \
... tablename

When adding new entry rows to a table with either -a or -A:

• Always enclose the value element in quotes. For example, to add an entry where the value of the cname column is deneb, the column=value pair would look like: cname="deneb".

• You must specify a value for every column in the table.

• To specify that a column in the entry row you are adding is empty use column=" ". In other words, for the value, enclose a space between the quote marks.

NIS+ is a naming service and its tables are designed to store references to objects, not the objects themselves. NIS+ is optimized to support 10,000 objects with a combined total size of all tables not more than 10M bytes. NIS+ does not support individual tables where the sum of field sizes in a single column are greater than approximately 7k. If a table is too large, rpc.nisd may fail.

Adding an NIS+ Table Entry With the -a Option

The -a option adds an entry to a table unless the entry already exists, in which case it returns an error. An entry is defined as existing if its values in the searchable columns exactly match the values in the new entry's searchable columns. (The values in non-searchable columns are not taken into account.)

To use the -a option, you must specify a value for every column in the table:

nistbladm -a column="value" \
 column="value" \
 ... tablename
nistbladm -a indexedname

(To list the names and characteristics of table columns, use the niscat -o tablename command.)

For example, to add a new row to a table named depts using column=value pairs, you would enter:

rootmaster% nistbladm -a Name='R&D' Site='SanFran' \
 Name='vattel' depts.doc.com.

To add the same entry using an indexed name, you would enter:

rootmaster% nistbladm -a [Name='R&D',Site='SanFran',\
 Name='vattel'],depts.doc.com.

Both examples would produce a table row that looked like this:

C-shell users should also use quotes to set off expressions using square brackets.

You can only add one entry with each instance of the nistbladm command. You must run nistbladm once for each entry row you want to add.

If a table row already exists with values in each column that are identical to the entry you are trying to create, nistbladm -a will return an error. You cannot have two identical entry rows in a table. In this context, rows are considered identical if the values in the searchable columns are identical, the values in none search able columns are not considered.

For example, if the Dept and Site columns are searchable, and the Name column is not searchable, nistbladm considers the following two rows to be identical:

In this example, nistbladm -a would not allow you to create the Sales Vancouver Lincoln row.

However if just some of the searchable columns have values identical to the entry you are trying to create, nistbladm -a will create a new entry as specified. For example, you could run the following commands to create two similar, but not identical, rows in a depts table:

rootmaster% nistbladm -a Dept='Sales' \
   Site='Vancouver' Name='hosteen' staff.doc.com.
rootmaster% nistbladm -a Dept='Sales' \
   Site='SanFran' Name='lincoln' staff.doc.com.

Which would produce rows that had some, but not all identical values in the searchable columns:

Adding an NIS+ Table Entry With the -A Option

The -A option is designed for applications where you need to force nistbladm to overwrite an existing entry. Like the -a option, -A adds a new entry to a table. However, if the entry already exists, instead of exiting with an error, it overwrites the existing entry row.

When using the -A option, you must specify all columns in the entry.

For example, suppose the following table exists and the Dept and Site columns are searchable:

Now you run the following command:

rootmaster% nistbladm -A Name=Sales Site=SanFran \
 Name=Tsosulu depts.doc.com.

The -a option would have returned an error, since the entry specified by Name=Sales Site=SanFran already exists. But the -A option allows you to overwrite the existing row.

Modifying NIS+ Table Entries

Existing table entries are edited (modified) using either the -e or -E options. The Solaris release also supports use of the -m option for backwards compatibility with earlier releases. (All new applications and command line operations should use either the -e or -E options.)

To edit an existing entry (row) in a table, use nistbladm with either the -e or -E options followed by one or more column=value pairs that specify the new values and ending with an indexed name that identifies a particular row in a table as described in nistbladm and Indexed NIS+ Names.

nistbladm [-e | -E] column="value" \
 column="value" \
 ... indexedname

When adding new entry rows to a table with either -e or -E:

• Always enclose the value element in quotes. For example, to change the value of the cname column to deneb, the column=value pair would look like: cname="deneb".

• You can only edit values in searchable columns one entry (row) at a time.

• To specify that a column in the entry row that you are editing be empty, use column=" ". In other words, for the value, enclose a space between the quote marks.

Editing an NIS+ Table Entry With the -e Option

The -e option edits an entry in a table unless doing so would result in changing values in searchable columns in more than one entry row, in which case it returns an error. (The values in non-searchable columns are not taken into account.)

nistbladm column="value" \
 column="value" \
 ... indexedname

To use the -e option, you only need to specify the column values you are changing.

For example, suppose you had the table:

To change the value of the Name column to Chandar, you would enter:

master% nistbladm -e Name="Chandar" [Dept='Sales',Site='SanFran'],\
 depts.doc.com.

Now the table looks like this:

(Note that in the example above, the indexed name did not need to include the Name column because in these examples that column is not searchable.)

C-shell users should also use quotes to set off expressions using square brackets.

You can use the -e option to edit the values in searchable columns so long as the new values you specify affect only the single row identified by the indexed name. For example, to change the department to Manf, you would enter:

master% nistbladm -e Dept="Manf" [Dept='Sales',Site='SanFran'],\
 depts.doc.com.

However, if an entry row already existed with Manf and SanFran in the searchable columns, the -e option would return an error.

You can specify changes to multiple columns so long as they all apply to a single entry row. For example, to change both the Dept and Name values, you would enter:

master% nistbladm -e Dept="Manf" Name=”Thi” \
 [Dept='Sales',Site='SanFran'],depts.doc.com.

Editing an NIS+ Table Entry With the -E Option

The -E option is designed for applications where you need to force nistbladm to overwrite an existing entry even if doing so will affect more than one entry.

For example, suppose your table had the following rows:

Now you run the following command:

master% nistbladm -E Site="Alameda” Mgr="Chu" \
[Div='Sales',Site='SanFran'],depts.doc.com.

Which would change the Sales SanFran Chandar row to Sales Alameda Chu. But Sales Alameda are the key values identifying the Sales Alameda Achmed row, so that row would also be changed. The result would be a single row where once there had been two rows:

The -e option would have returned an error, since the edit would affect more than one row. But the -E option allows you to affect more than one entry row.

Removing NIS+ Table Entries

• To remove a single entry from a table, use the -r option as described in Removing NIS+ Single Table Entries.

• To remove multiple entries from a table, use the -R option as described in Removing Multiple Entries From an NIS+ Table.

Removing NIS+ Single Table Entries

To remove a single entry from a table, use the -r option:

nistbladm -r indexed-name

This example removes the Manf-1 entry from the depts table:

rootmaster% nistbladm -r [Dept=Manf-1,Site=Emeryville,Name=hosteen],\
depts.doc.com.

You can specify as few column values as you wish. If NIS+ finds duplicates, it does not remove any entry and returns an error message instead. Thus, you could have removed the Manf-1 by specifying only the Site column value, as in this example:

rootmaster% nistbladm -r [Site=Emeryville],depts.doc.com.

However, you could not have removed the Sales entry by specifying only the Site column value (SanFran), because two entries have that same value (R&D and Sales):

Removing Multiple Entries From an NIS+ Table

To remove multiple entries from a table, use the -R option:

nistbladm -R indexedname

As with the -r option, you can specify as few column values as you wish. Unlike the -r option, however, if NIS+ finds duplicates, it removes all of them. You can find the name of a table's column by using the niscat -o command. This example removes all entries in which the Site is SanFran:

rootmaster% nistbladm -R [Site=SanFran],depts.doc.com.

You can use the -R option to remove all the entries from a table. Simply do not specify any column values between the square brackets, as in this example:

rootmaster% nistbladm -R [],depts.doc.com.

When used with the nistbladm -R command, an empty set of square brackets is interpreted as a wildcard specifying all table rows.

niscat Command

The niscat command displays the contents of an NIS+ table. However, you can also use it to display the object properties of the table. You must have read rights to the table, entries, or columns that you wish to display.

niscat Command Syntax

To display the contents of a table, use:

niscat [-hM] tablename

To display the object properties of a table, use:

niscat -o tablename
niscat -o entry

Displaying the Contents of an NIS+ Table

To display the contents of a table, use niscat with a table name:

niscat tablename

This example displays the contents of the table named depts.

rootmaster% niscat -h depts.doc.com.
#Name:Site:Name
R&D:SanFran:kuznetsov
Sales:SanFran:jhill
Manf-1:Emeryville:hosteen
Manf-2:Sausalito:lincoln

The symbol *NP* indicates that you do not have permission to view that entry. Permissions are granted on a table, column, or entry (row) basis. For more on access permissions, see Chapter 15, Administering NIS+ Access Rights.

Displaying the Object Properties of an NIS+ Table or Entry

To list the object properties of a table, use niscat -o and the table's name:

niscat -o tablename.org_dir

To display the object properties of a table entry, use niscat -o and specify the entry with an indexed name:

entry ::=column=value \
 ... tablename | \
 [column=value,...],\
 tablename

Here are two examples, one for a table and one for a table entry:

Table

rootmaster# niscat -o hosts.org_dir.doc.com.
Object Name : hosts
Owner : rootmaster.doc.com.
Group : admin.doc.com.
Domain : org_dir.doc.com.
Access Rights : ----rmcdr---r---
Time to Live : 12:0:0
Object Type : TABLE
Table Type : hosts_tbl
Number of Columns : 4
Character Separator :
Search Path :
Columns :
 [0] Name : cname
 Attributes : (SEARCHABLE, TEXTUAL DATA, CASE INS
 Access Rights: ----------------
 [1] Name : name
 Attributes : (SEARCHABLE, TEXTUAL DATA, CASE INS
 Access Rights: ----------------
 [2] Name : addr
 Attributes : (SEARCHABLE, TEXTUAL DATA, CASE INS
 Access Rights: ----------------
 [3] Name : comment
 Attributes : (TEXTUAL DATA)
 Access Rights: ----------------

Table entry

rootmaster# niscat -o [name=rootmaster],hosts.org_dir.doc.com.
Object Name : hosts
Owner : rootmaster.doc.com.
Group : admin.doc.com.
Domain : org_dir.doc.com.
Access Rights : ----rmcdr---r---
Time to Live : 12:0:0
Object Type : ENTRY
 Entry data of type hosts_tbl
 Entry has 4 columns.
 .
#

nismatch and nisgrep Commands

The nismatch and nisgrep commands search through NIS+ tables for entries that match a particular string or regular expression, respectively. They display either the entries themselves or a count of how many entries matched. The differences between the nismatch and nisgrep commands are highlighted in Table 19–6 below.

The tasks and examples in this section describe the syntax for both commands.

To use either command, you must have read access to the table you are searching through.

The examples in this section are based on the values in the following table, named depts.doc.com. Only the first two columns are searchable.

About Regular Expressions in NIS+

Regular expressions are combinations of text and symbols that you can use to search for special configurations of column values. For example, the regular expression `Hello' searches for a value that begins with Hello. When using a regular expression in the command line, be sure to enclose it in quotes, since many of the regular expression symbols have special meaning to the Bourne and C shells. For example:

rootmaster% nisgrep -h greeting='Hello' phrases.doc.com.

The regular expression symbols are summarized in Table 19–7, below.

nismatch and nisgrep Command Syntax

To search through the first column, use:

nismatch string tablename  
nisgrep reg-exp tablename

To search through a particular column, use:

nismatch column=string tablename
nisgrep column=reg-exp tablename 

To search through multiple columns, use:

nismatch column=string tablename ...\
nismatch [column=string,...],tablename
nisgrep column=reg-exp ... \
   tablename

Searching the First Column in NIS+

To search for a particular value in the first column of a table, simply enter the first column value and a tablename. In nismatch, the value must be a string. In nisgrep, the value must be a regular expression.

nismatch [-h] string tablename
nisgrep [-h] reg-expression tablename

This example searches through the depts table for all the entries whose first column has a value of R&D:

rootmaster% nismatch -h `R&D' depts.doc.com.
rootmaster% nisgrep -h `R&D' depts.doc.com.

Quotes are used in the 'R&D' expression above to prevent the shell from interpreting the ampersand (&) as a metacharacter.

Searching a Particular Column in NIS+

To search through a particular column other than the first, use the following syntax:

nismatch column=string tablename
nisgrep column=reg-expression tablename

This example searches through the depts table for all the entries whose second column has a value of SanFran:

rootmaster% nismatch -h Site=SanFran depts.doc.com.
rootmaster% nisgrep -h Site=SanFran depts.doc.com.

Searching Multiple Columns in NIS+

To search for entries with matches in two or more columns, use the following syntax:

nismatch [-h] [column=string, ... \
 column=string,...],tablename
nisgrep [-h] column=reg-exp ... \
 tablename

This example searches for entries whose second column has a value of SanFran and whose third column has a value of jhill:

rootmaster% nismatch -h [Site=SanFran,Name=jhill], depts.doc.com.
rootmaster% nisgrep -h Site=SanFran Name=jhill depts.doc.com.

nisln Command

The nisln command creates symbolic links between NIS+ objects such as tables and directories. All NIS+ administration commands accept the -L flag, which directs them to follow links between NIS+ objects.

Do not link table entries. Tables may be linked to other tables, but do not link an entry in one table to an entry in another table.

To create a link to another object (table or directory), you must have modify rights to the source object; that is, the one that will point to the other object or entry.

Never link a cred table. Each org_dir directory should have its own cred table. Do not use a link to some other org_dir cred table.

nisln Command Syntax

To create a link, use:

nisln source target

Creating a Link in NIS+

To create a link between objects such as tables and directories, specify both object names: first the source, and then the target. Do not link table entries.

nisln source-object target-object

nissetup Command

The nissetup command expands an existing NIS+ directory object into a domain by creating the org_dir and groups_dir directories, and a full set of NIS+ tables. It does not, however, populate the tables with data. For that, you will need the nisaddent command, described in nisaddent Command. Expanding a directory into a domain is part of the process of setting up a domain.

When setting up a new NIS+ domain, the nisserverscript is easier to use than the nissetup command. See Setting Up NIS+ Root Servers for a full description of using nisserver.

The nissetup command can expand a directory into a domain that supports NIS clients as well.

To use nissetup, you must have modify rights to the directory under which you'll store the tables.

Expanding a Directory Into an NIS+ Domain

You can use the nissetup command with or without a directory name. If you don't supply the directory name, it uses the default directory. Each object that is added is listed in the output.

rootmaster# /usr/lib/nis/nissetup doc.com.
org_dir.doc.com. created
groups_dir.doc.com. created
auto_master.org_dir.doc.com. created
auto_home.org_dir.doc.com. created
bootparams.org_dir.doc.com. created
cred.org_dir.doc.com. created
ethers.org_dir.doc.com. created
group.org_dir.doc.com. created
hosts.org_dir.doc.com. created
mail_aliases.org_dir.doc.com. created
sendmailvars.org_dir.doc.com. created
netmasks.org_dir.doc.com. created
netgroup.org_dir.doc.com. created
networks.org_dir.doc.com. created
passwd.org_dir.doc.com. created
protocols.org_dir.doc.com. created
rpc.org_dir.doc.com. created
services.org_dir.doc.com. created
timezone.org_dir.doc.com. created

Expanding a Directory Into an NIS-Compatible Domain

To expand a directory into a domain that supports NIS+ and NIS client requests, use the -Y flag. The tables are created with read rights for the nobody class so that NIS clients requests can access them.

rootmaster# /usr/lib/nis/nissetup -Y Test.doc.com.

nisaddent Command

The nisaddent command loads information from text files or NIS maps into NIS+ tables. It can also dump the contents of NIS+ tables back into text files. If you are populating NIS+ tables for the first time, see the instructions in Populating NIS+ Tables. It describes all the prerequisites and related tasks.

You can use nisaddent to transfer information from one NIS+ table to another (for example, to the same type of table in another domain), but not directly. First, you need to dump the contents of the table into a file, and then load the file into the other table. Be sure, though, that the information in the file is formatted properly. Chapter 10, NIS+ Tables and Information describes the format required for each table.

When you load information into a table, you can use any of three options: replace, append, or merge. The append option simply adds the source entries to the NIS+ table. With the replace option, NIS+ first deletes all existing entries in the table and then adds the entries from the source. In a large table, this adds a large set of entries into the table's .log file (one set for removing the existing entries, another for adding the new ones), taking up space in /var/nis and making propagation to replicas time consuming.

The merge option produces the same result as the replace option but uses a different process, one that can greatly reduce the number of operations that must be sent to the replicas.

With the merge option, NIS+ handles three types of entries differently:

• Entries that exist only in the source are added to the table

• Entries that exist in both the source and the table are updated in the table

• Entries that exist only in the NIS+ table are deleted from the table

When updating a large table with a file or map whose contents are not greatly different from those of the table, the merge option can spare the server a great many operations. Because the merge option deletes only the entries that are not duplicated in the source (the replace option deletes all entries, indiscriminately), it saves one delete and one add operation for every duplicate entry.

If you are loading information into the tables for the first time, you must have create rights to the table object. If you are overwriting information in the tables, you must have modify rights to the tables.

nisaddent Command Syntax

To load information from text files, use:

/usr/lib/nis/nisaddent -f filename table-type\[domain]
/usr/lib/nis/nisaddent -f filename \
 -t tablename table-type [domain]

To load information from NIS maps, use:

/usr/lib/nis/nisaddent -y NISdomain table-type\
  [domain]
/usr/lib/nis/nisaddent -y NISdomain -t tablename table-type [domain]
/usr/lib/nis/nisaddent -Y map table-type [domain]
/usr/lib/nis/nisaddent -Y map -t tablename table-type [domain]

To dump information from an NIS+ table to a file, use:

/usr/lib/nis/nisaddent -d [-t tablename tabletype] \
 > filename

Loading Information Into NIS+ From a File

You can transfer the contents of a file into an NIS+ table in several different ways:

• The -f option with no other option replaces the contents of table-type in the local domain with the contents of filename.

  nisaddent -f filename table-type

• With the -a option, -f appends the contents of filename to table-type.

  nisaddent -a -f filename table-type

• With the -m option, -f merges the contents of filename into the contents of table-type.

  nisaddent -m -f filename table-type

The following two examples load the contents of a text file named /etc/passwd.xfr into the NIS+ Passwd table. The first is into a table in the local domain, the second into a table in another domain:

rootmaster# /usr/lib/nis/nisaddent -f /etc/passwd.xfr passwd
rootmaster# /usr/lib/nis/nisaddent -f /etc/shadow.xfr shadow
rootmaster# /usr/lib/nis/nisaddent -f /etc/passwd.xfr passwd sales.doc.com.
rootmaster# /usr/lib/nis/nisaddent -f /etc/shadow.xfr shadow sales.doc.com.

When creating an NIS+ passwd table from /etc files, you must run nisaddent twice. You run the command once on the /etc/passwd file and once on the /etc/shadow file.

On a system that is running a release prior to the Solaris 10 7/07 release, you must place IPv6 addresses into NIS+. To merge entries from the /etc/inet/ipnodes file (IPv6 addresses) into the ipnodes.org_dir table, use the -v and -f options.

rootmaster# /usr/lib/nis/nisaddent -mv -f  /etc/inet/ipnodes ipnodes

Another way is to use stdin as the source. However, you cannot use the -m option with stdin. You can use redirect (->) or pipe (-|), but you cannot pipe into another domain.

If the NIS+ table is an automounter table or a nonstandard table, add the -t option and the complete name of the NIS+ table.

master# nisaddent -f /etc/auto_home.xfr \
  -t auto_home.org_dir.doc.com.key-value
master# nisaddent -f /etc/auto_home.xfr \
  -t auto_home.org_dir.doc.com. key-value sales.doc.com.

Loading Data From an NIS Map Into NIS+

You can transfer information from an NIS map in two different ways; either by specifying the NIS domain or by specifying the actual NIS map. If you specify the domain, NIS+ will figure out which map file in /var/yp/nisdomain to use as the source, based on the table-type. Note that /var/yp/nisdomain must be local files.

To transfer by specifying the NIS domain, use the -y (lowercase) option and provide the NIS domain in addition to the NIS+ table type.

Table replacement

nisaddent -y nisdomain table-type

Table append

nisaddent -a -y nisdomain table-type

Table merge

nisaddent -m -y nisdomain table-type

By default, nisaddent replaces the contents of the NIS+ table with the contents of the NIS map. Use the -a and -m options to append or merge. Here is an example that loads the NIS+ passwd table from its corresponding NIS map (passwd.byname) in the old-doc domain:

rootmaster# /usr/lib/nis/nisaddent -y old-doc passwd

This example does the same thing, but for the sales.doc.com. domain instead of the local domain, doc.com.

rootmaster# /usr/lib/nis/nisaddent -y old-doc passwd sales.doc.com.

If the NIS+ table is an automounter table or a nonstandard table, add the -t option and the complete name of the NIS table, just as you would if the source were a file.

rootmaster# nisaddent -y old-doc \
  -t auto_home.org_dir.doc.com. key-value
rootmaster# nisaddent -y old-doc \
  -t auto_home.org_dir.doc.com. key-value sales.doc.com.

If instead of using the map files for a domain, you prefer to specify a particular NIS map, use the -Y (uppercase) option and specify the map name.

rootmaster# nisaddent -Y hosts.byname hosts
rootmaster# nisaddent -Y hosts.byname hosts sales.doc.com.

If the NIS map is an automounter map or a non standard map, combine the -Y option with the -t option:

rootmaster# nisaddent -Y auto_home 
 -t auto_home.org_dir.doc.com. key-value
rootmaster# nisaddent -Y auto_home 
 -t auto_home.org_dir.doc.com. key-value sales.doc.com.

Dumping the Contents of an NIS+ Table to a File

To dump the contents of an NIS+ table into a file, use the -d and -t options. The -d options tells the command to dump, and the -t option specifies the NIS+ table:

rootmaster# nisaddent -d auto_home 
 -t auto_home.org_dir.doc.com. key-value 
rootmaster# nisaddent -d auto_home 
 -t auto_home.org_dir.doc.com. key-value sales.doc.com.