niscat

- display NIS+ tables and objects

Synopsis

niscat [-AhLMv] [-s sep] tablename...

niscat [-ALMP] -o name...

Description

In the first synopsis, niscat displays the contents of the NIS+ tables named by tablename. In the second synopsis, it displays the internal representation of the NIS+ objects named by name.

Columns without values in the table are displayed by two adjacent separator characters.

Options

The following options are supported:

-A

Displays the data within the table and all of the data in tables in the initial table's concatenation path.

-h

Displays the header line prior to displaying the table. The header consists of the `#' (hash) character followed by the name of each column. The column names are separated by the table separator character.

-L

Follows links. When this option is specified, if tablename or name names a LINK type object, the link is followed and the object or table named by the link is displayed.

-M

Master server only. This option specifies that the request should be sent to the master server of the named data. This guarantees that the most up-to-date information is seen at the possible expense of increasing the load on the master server and increasing the possibility of the NIS+ server being unavailable or busy for updates.

-o name

Displays the internal representation of the named NIS+ object(s). If name is an indexed name (see nismatch(1)), then each of the matching entry objects is displayed. This option is used to display access rights and other attributes of individual columns.

-P

Follows concatenation path. This option specifies that the request should follow the concatenation path of a table if the initial search is unsuccessful. This option is only useful when using an indexed name for name and the -o option.

-s sep

This option specifies the character to use to separate the table columns. If no character is specified, the default separator for the table is used.

-v

Displays binary data directly. This option displays columns containing binary data on the standard output. Without this option binary data is displayed as the string *BINARY*.

Examples

Example 1 Displaying the Contents of the Hosts Table

The following example displays the contents of the hosts table:

example% niscat -h hosts.org_dir
# cname    name    addr    comment
client1    client1    192.168.201.100    Joe Smith
crunchy    crunchy    192.168.201.44    Jane Smith
crunchy    softy    192.168.201.44

The string *NP* is returned in those fields where the user has insufficient access rights.

Example 2 Displaying on the Standard Output

The following displays the passwd.org_dir on the standard output.

example% niscat passwd.org_dir

Example 3 Displaying Table Contents

Display the contents of table frodo and the contents of all tables in its concatenation path.

example% niscat -A frodo

Example 4 Displaying Table Entries

The following example diisplays the entries in the table groups.org_dir as NIS+ objects. Notice that the brackets are protected from the shell by single quotes.

example% niscat -o '[ ]groups.org_dir'

Example 5 Displaying the Table Object

The following example displays the table object of the passwd.org_dir table.

example% niscat -o passwd.org_dir

The previous example displays the passwd table object and not the passwd table. The table object includes information such as the number of columns, column type, searchable or not searchable separator, access rights, and other defaults.

Example 6 Displaying the Directory Object

The following example displays the directory object for org_dir, which includes information such as the access rights and replica information.

example% niscat -o org_dir

Environment Variables

NIS_PATH

If this variable is set, and the NIS+ table name is not fully qualified, each directory specified will be searched until the table is found (see nisdefaults(1)).

Exit Status

niscat returns the following values:

0

Successful completion

1

An error occurred.

Attributes

See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

See Also

NIS+(1), nisdefaults(1), nismatch(1), nistbladm(1), nis_objects(3NSL), nis_tables(3NSL), attributes(5)

Notes

NIS+ might not be supported in future releases of the Solaris operating system. Tools to aid the migration from NIS+ to LDAP are available in the current Solaris release. For more information, visit http://www.sun.com/directory/nisplus/transition.html.