Printing Support in the Name Service Switch (System Administration Guide: Advanced Administration)

System Administration Guide: Advanced Administration

Printing Support in the Name Service Switch

The printers database in /etc/nsswitch.conf, the name service switch file, provides centralized printer configuration information to print clients on the network.

By including the printers database and corresponding sources of information in the name service switch file, print clients automatically have access to printer configuration information without having to add it to their own systems.

The default printers entry in the /etc/nsswitch.conf file for files, LDAP, NIS, and NIS+ environments are described in the following table. The nisplus keyword represents the printers.org_dir table. The xfn keyword represents the FNS printer contexts.

Name Service Type	Default `printers` Entry
`files`	`printers: user files`
`ldap`	`printers: user files ldap`
`nis`	`printers: user files nis`
`nis+`	`printers: user nisplus files xfn`

For example, if your name service is NIS, printer configuration information on print clients is looked in the following sources in this order:

user - Represents the user's $HOME/.printers file
files - Represents the /etc/printers.conf file
nis - Represents the printers.conf.byname table

For more information, see nsswitch.conf(4) and System Administration Guide: Naming and Directory Services (DNS, NIS, and LDAP).