Setting Up NIS Slave Servers

Your network can have one or more slave servers. Having slave servers ensures the continuity of NIS services when the master server is not available.

Preparing a Slave Server

Before actually running ypinit to create the slave servers, you should run the domainname command on each NIS slave to make sure the domain name is consistent with the master server.

Make sure that the network is working properly before you configure an NIS slave server. In particular, check to be sure you can use rcp to send files from the master NIS server to NIS slaves.

Setting Up a Slave Server

The following procedure shows how to set up a slave server.

How to Set Up a Slave Server

1. Become an administrator.

   For more information, see How to Obtain Administrative Rights in System Administration Guide: Security Services.

2. Edit the /etc/hosts or /etc/inet/ipnodes file on the slave server to add the name and IP addresses of all the other NIS servers.
3. Change directory to /var/yp on the slave server.

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   Note - You must first configure the new slave server as an NIS client so that it can get the NIS maps from the master for the first time. See Setting Up NIS Clients for details.

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4. Initialize the slave server as a client.

   # /usr/sbin/ypinit -c

   The ypinit command prompts you for a list of NIS servers. Enter the name of the local slave you are working on first, then the master server, followed by the other NIS slave servers in your domain in order from the physically closest to the furthest in network terms.

5. Determine if the NIS client is running, then start the client service as needed.

   # svcs network/nis/client
   STATE          STIME     FMRI
   online         20:32:56  svc:/network/nis/client:default

   If svc:/network/nis/client is displayed with an online state, then NIS is running. If the service state is disabled, then NIS is not running.

   1. If the NIS client is running, restart the client service.

      # svcadm restart network/nis/client

   2. If the NIS client is not running, start the client service.

      # svcadm enable network/nis/client

6. If NIS is running, stop and restart the service.

   # /usr/lib/netsvc/yp/ypstop

7. Type the following to restart ypbind.

   # /usr/lib/netsvc/yp/ypstart

8. Initialize this machine as a slave.

   # /usr/sbin/ypinit -s master

   Where master is the machine name of the existing NIS master server.

   Repeat the procedures described in this section for each machine you want configured as an NIS slave server.

How to Start NIS on a Slave Server

The following procedure shows how to start NIS on a slave server.

1. Become an administrator.

   For more information, see How to Obtain Administrative Rights in System Administration Guide: Security Services.

2. Stop the client service and start all NIS server processes.

   # svcadm disable network/nis/client
   # svcadm enable network/nis/server