The trailing dot in an organization name indicates that the name is a fully qualified NIS+ domain name. Without the trailing dot, the organization name is an NIS+ domain name to be resolved relative to the NIS+ root domain.
For example, if the NIS+ root domain is doc.com., with a subdomain sales.doc.com., the following pairs of names refer to the same organization:
Table 22-4 Example of Relative and Fully Qualified Organization Names Under NIS+
Relative Name |
Fully Qualified Name |
---|---|
org/ |
org/doc.com. |
org/sales |
org/sales.doc.com. |
The name org/manf. (with trailing dot) would not be found, because there is no NIS+ domain with just the manf. name.