2) Configure the mail server as an NIS slave. I'm thinking that this
will basically "copy" the user info (username, password, homedir,
etc.) on a schedule and store it locally on the mail server (is this
how it works?). This covers both issues - power outage and a server
dying. But I've read about problems getting password sync to happen
quickly. I'd ideally like it to happen immediately (without any
manual intervention) but I don't think this is possible.
Thoughts?
Jeff Graves, MCSA
Customer Support Engineer
I have not used NIS for quite some time, rdist and ssh keys are much better for this simple task.
Home dir's in the Sun NIS model is handled via a NFS mount of the home dir from a common home dir server.
In NIS all slaves can also be clients. Slaves get the passwd, group, shadow, and other
maps from the master via a transfer which is started/controlled by the master. So, as soon as the master and slaves
are up, the master will push out maps if they have been changed. If the master crashes the slaves should have the most current
maps.
NIS is a slow process in general, one twist is to config all slaves to be clients first, then slaves. Slaves configed this way
will query the master (as a client) and if this fails query their local maps (as a slave).