NIS architecture

NIS was originally developed by Sun Microsystems in 1980s Original name: Yellow Pages

Server maintains the authoritative centralized copies of system files and their maps in hashed format, ndbm or gdbm.

Clients do not store NIS data locally, but they send out a query every time they need information.

Like NFS, NIS works through RPC.

Binding: connection Client - Server.


Client                                Server

ypbind    --- RPC bind request --->  portmapper

ypbind    <-- port number      ---   portmapper

ypbind    --- RPC bind request --->  ypserv

ypbind    <-- respond ------------   ypserv

Example: the DSV lab machines.

Server NIS daemons:


portmap
ypserv
yppasswdd

The portmap holds the port, service number and version numbers for each RPC service. If the portmap goes down, then all services need to be restarted after the portmap is restarted.

Client NIS daemons:


portmap
ypbind

Advantages:


Centralized management of clients

Easy to configure and maintain

NIS maps can be easily re-created from configuration text files

Disadvantages:

Server manages only one NIS domain

Server (or network) is down - clients are down

Security issues

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