Solaris Naming Administration Guide

nis_cachemgr is Required

Server-use customization requires that a client be running nis_cachemgr. If a client machine is not running nis_cachemgr, it cannot make use of server-use customization. If there is no nis_cachemgr running on a client machine, that client will use the first server it identifies as described in "Default Client Search Behavior".