[Dovecot] OT: NIS Authentication

[james edwards]

> 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).


James H. Edwards
Network Systems Administrator
Judicial Information Division
jedwards at nmcourts.com
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