Starting NIS Service on the Master Server

Now that the master maps are created, you can start the NIS daemons on the master server and begin service. To do this, you have to start ypserv on the server and run ypbind. When a client requests information from the server, ypserv is the daemon that answers information requests from clients after looking them up in the NIS maps.

There are two ways that NIS service can be started on a server:

• By automatically invoking the /usr/lib/netsvc/yp/ypstart script during the boot process

• Using ypstart from the command line

Starting NIS Service Automatically

After the NIS master server has been configured by running ypinit, ypstart is automatically invoked to start up ypserv when the machine is booted. See Setting Up the Master Server With ypinit.

Starting and Stopping NIS From the Command Line

To begin NIS service from the command line, run the ypstart script.

# /usr/lib/netsvc/yp/ypstart

Because there is a slight delay before ypserv is ready to respond to calls after startup, you should issue a three to five second sleep after ypstart when calling it from inside a program or script.

To stop NIS service, run the ypstop script.

# /usr/lib/netsvc/yp/ypstop