Installing and Administering Internet Services

Chapter 2 31
Installing and Configuring Internet Services
Configuring the Name Service Switch
Configuring the Name Service Switch
The Name Service Switch determines where your system will look for the
information that is traditionally stored in the following files:
/etc/mail/aliases
AutoFS maps (like /etc/auto_master and /etc/auto_home)
/etc/group
/etc/hosts
/etc/netgroup
/etc/networks
/etc/passwd
/etc/protocols
/etc/publickey
/etc/rpc
/etc/services
For all types of information except host information, you can configure
your system to use NIS (one of the NFS Services), NIS+ (the next
generation of NIS), or the local /etc file, in any order. However, we
recommend that you do not configure your system to use both NIS and
NIS+.
For host information, you can configure your system to use BIND (DNS),
NIS, NIS+, or the /etc/hosts file. As mentioned above, we recommend
that you do not configure your system to use both NIS and NIS+.
The default Name Service Switch configuration is adequate for most
installations, so you probably do not have to change it. The default
configuration is explained in “Default Configuration” on page 32.
Beginning with the earlier HP-UX 10.30 release, the Name Service
Switch has a different default behavior from the Name Service Switch in
previous releases. If you have been using the pre-10.30 default Name
Service Switch configuration (or if you do not have an
/etc/nsswitch.conf file), and you want your host to continue to have
that same pre-10.30 behavior, copy the /etc/nsswitch.hp_defaults
file to /etc/nsswitch.conf. See “Default Configuration” on page 32.