How to Add IPv6 Addresses to NIS and NIS+

A new table has been added for NIS+ named ipnodes.org_dir. It contains both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses for a host. The existing hosts.org_dir table, which contains only IPv4 addresses for a host, remains as it is to facilitate existing applications. You must keep both the hosts.org_dir and ipnodes.org_dir tables consistent with the IPv4 addresses. This does not happen automatically. See "IPv6 Extensions to Solaris Name Services" for an overview.

Administration of the new ipnodes.org_dir table is similar to administering the hosts.org_dir. The same tools and utilities that were used in administering the previous NIS+ tables are valid for ipnodes.org_dir. See Solaris Naming Administration Guide for complete details on how to manipulate the NIS+ table.

The following procedure merges the entries from /etc/inet/ipnodes into the ipnodes.org_dir table (in verbose mode). The NIS+ table was probably created by nistbladm(1), nissetup(1M), or nisserver(1M).

On a command line, type the following command:

% nisaddent -mv -f /etc/inet/ipnodes ipnodes

Use the following procedure to display the ipnodes.org_dir table.

On a command line, type the following command:

% nisaddent -d ipnodes

Two new maps have been added for NIS: ipnodes.byname and ipnodes.byaddr. These maps contain both IPv4 and IPv6 hostname and address associations. The existing hosts.byname and hosts.byaddr maps, which contain only IPv4 hostname and address associations, will remain as they are to facilitate existing applications. Administration of the new maps is similar to the maintenance of the older hosts.byname and hosts.byaddr maps. Again, it is important that when you update the hosts maps with IPv4 addresses that the new ipnode maps are also updated with the same information.

IPv6 aware tools will use the new NIS and NIS+ maps and tables exclusively.