Prerequisites to Running nisserver

Before you can run nisserver to create a master server for a new non-root domain:

• The parent domain must already have been configured and its master server must be running.

• The parent domain's tables must be populated. (At a minimum, the hosts table must have an entry for the new client machine.)

• You must have initialized the new client machine in the parent domain.

• You must have started rpc.nisd on the client.

• You must have adequate permissions to add the new domain. In this case, you must be logged in as root on the parent master server. In this example, the parent master machine is named master1.

Information You Need

You need:

• A name for the new non-root domain—the name of the new domain includes the name of the parent domain with this syntax: newdomain.rootdomain.

• The client machine name (client2, in this example)

• The superuser password for the parent master server

In How to Create a New Non-Root Domain, the new non-root domain is called sub.doc.com..

In Solaris release 2.6 and earlier, any NIS+ client can be converted to an NIS+ master server as long as it is itself in a domain above the domain it is serving. For example, an NIS+ client in domain sales.doc.com. can serve domains below it in the hierarchy, such as west.sales.doc.com. or even alameda.west.sales.doc.com.. This client cannot, however, serve the domain doc.com., because doc.com. is above the domain sales.doc.com. in the hierarchy. Root replicas are the only exception to this rule. They are clients of the domain that they serve.

In Solaris release 7, the domainname of any non-root NIS+ server can be set to the domain it serves. The non-root server behaves as if it lives in its own domain. This allows you to configure applications on the non-root server to use the information provided by the domain above it in the hierarchy.

The non-root server's credentials must still be in the domain above it in the hierarchy. Configure the non-root servers as described in How to Create a New Non-Root Domain. Only after the servers are properly configured, can you change the domainname to that of the domain it serves. See the -k option of nisinit and the -d option of nisserver.