Default

The install process determines the appropriate name service configuration and generates a corresponding /etc/nsswitch.conf file. For a standalone networked system, /etc/nsswitch.conf is a copy of /etc/nsswitch.nis for an NIS environment or /etc/nsswitch.nisplus for an NIS+ environment.

This default configuration will work satisfactorily as long as your SPARCstation Voyager is connected to a network. However, when it is disconnected, access to a name service will cause requesting processes to wait for a predetermined timeout period (30 seconds for NIS and 10 seconds for NIS+) while the name service client component tries to connect to the remote and inaccessible server. Since some processes generate several accesses to a name service, the aggregate wait time can be significant.

For example, if you use ls to display a long list of the contents of a local directory that contains four files owned by someone else (whose user name is not in your local /etc/passwd file), you will wait two minutes (4 files * 1 non-local name per file * 30 seconds per NIS lookup of a non-local name) for the command to finish.