Managing NFS and NIS: Help for Unix System Administrators

by Mike Eisler, Ricardo Labiaga, Hal Stern

A modern computer system that's not part of a network is even more of an anomaly today than it was when we published the first edition of this book in 1991. But however widespread networks have become, managing a network and getting it to perform well can still be a problem.Managing NFS and NIS, in a new edition based on Solaris 8, is a guide to two tools that are absolutely essential to distributed computing the Network Filesystem (NFS) and the Network Information System (formerly called the "yellow pages" or YP).The Network Filesystem, developed by Sun Microsystems, is fundamental to most Unix networks. It lets systems ranging from PCs and Unix workstations to large mainframes access each other's files transparently, and is the standard method for sharing files between different computer systems.As popular as NFS is, it's a "black box" for most users and administrators. Updated for NFS Version 3, Managing NFS and NIS offers detailed access to what's inside, to plan, set up, and debug an NFS networkUsing the NFS automounterDiskless workstationsPC/NFSA new transport protocol for NFS (TCP/IP)New security options (IPSec and Kerberos V5)Diagnostic tools and utilitiesNFS client and server tuningNFS isn't really complete without its companion, NIS, a distributed database service for managing the most important administrative files, such as the passwd file and the hosts file. NIS centralizes administration of commonly replicated files, allowing a single change to the database rather than requiring changes on every system on the network.If you are managing a network of Unix systems, or are thinking of setting up a Unix network, you can't afford to overlook this book.

Genres: Technology, Computer Science, Reference, Computers, Technical

512 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was very dry as most technical books are, but a quick read as I was able to skip over entire chapters about NIS which has pretty much fallen out of use (not to mention my 1st edition copy is from 1991). Favorite chapter was performance tuning & on how to interpret the 'nfsstat' output made this read worthwhile. Also the various incantations of rpcinfo, in particular I like the "null ping"

[Jorgon · Rating 3 out of 5]

An oldie, and obsolete in some ways, but still an invaluable resource for NFS servers--and the general NFS operation and maintenance has not changed so much as to make this entirely useless. One has to make do with what's available: there does not appear to be a later edition, or a more recent general guide on the subject.