Manual page for fns_nis+(5)
fns_nis+ - overview of FNS over NIS+ implementation
DESCRIPTION
Federated Naming Service (FNS) provides a method for federating
multiple naming services under a single, simple interface for the
basic naming operations.
One of the naming services supported by
FNS
is
NIS+,
the enterprise-wide information service in Solaris (see
nis+.1
FNS
provides the
XFN
interface for performing naming and attribute operations on
FNS
enterprise objects (organization, site, user, host, and service
objects) using
NIS+.
FNS
stores bindings for these objects in
NIS+
and uses them in conjunction with existing
NIS+
objects.
FNS Policies and NIS+
FNS
defines policies for naming objects in the federated namespace
(see
fns_policies.5
At the enterprise level,
FNS
policies specify naming for organizations,
hosts, users, sites, and services.
The enterprise-level naming service provides contexts
to allow other objects to be named relative to these objects.
The organizational unit namespace provides a hierarchical namespace
for naming subunits of an enterprise.
An organizational unit
maps to an
NIS+
domain.
Organizational unit names can be either fully qualified
NIS+
domain names or relatively
NIS+
domain names.
If a terminal dot is present in the name, it is treated as a fully
qualified name.
Otherwise, the name is resolved relative to the root
NIS+
domain.
Users in the
NIS+
namespace are found in the
passwd.org_dir
table of an
NIS+
domain.
Users in an
FNS
organizational unit correspond to the
users in the
passwd.org_dir
table of the corresponding
NIS+
domain.
FNS
provides a context for each user in the
passwd.org_dir
table.
Hosts in the
NIS+
namespace are found in the
hosts.org_dir
table of an
NIS+
domain.
Hosts in an
FNS
organizational unit correspond
to the hosts in the
hosts.org_dir
table of the corresponding
NIS+
domain.
FNS
provides a context for each host in the
hosts.org_dir
table.
In
NIS+,
users and hosts have a notion of a
home domain.
It is the primary
NIS+
domain that maintains information associated
with them.
A user or host's home domain can be determined directly using its
NIS+
principal name, which is composed of the atomic user (login) name
or the atomic host name, and the name of the
NIS+
home domain.
For example, user
jsmith
with home domain
wiz.com
has an
NIS+
principal name,
jsmith.wiz.com.
A user's
NIS+
home domain corresponds to the user's
FNS
organizational unit and determines the binding for
myens
and
myorgunit.
A host's
NIS+
home domain corresponds to the host's
FNS
organizational unit and determines the binding for
thisens,
thisorgunit,
user,
and
host.
Federating NIS+ with DNS or X.500
Federating
NIS+
with the global naming systems
DNS
or X.500 makes
NIS+
contexts accessible outside of an
NIS+
hierarchy.
To enable the federation, the administrator must first
add address information in either
DNS
or X.500 (see
fns_dns.5
and
fns_x500.5
After this administrative step has been taken, clients
outside of the
NIS+
hierarchy can access contexts and perform
operations from outside the hierarchy as an unauthenticated
NIS+
client.
NIS+ Security
The command
fncreate.1m
creates
NIS+
tables and directories in the
NIS+
hierarchy associated with the domain of the host on which it executes.
The invoker of
fncreate.1m
and other
FNS
commands is expected to have the
necessary
NIS+
credentials.
(See
nis+.1
and
nisdefaults.1
The environment variable
NIS_GROUP
of the process specifies
the group owner for the
NIS+
objects thus created.
In order to facilitate administration of the
NIS+
objects,
NIS_GROUP
should be set to the name of the
NIS+
administration group for
the domain prior to executing
fncreate.1m
and other
FNS
commands.
Changes to
NIS+-related
properties, including default access control rights,
could be effected using
NIS+
administration tools and interfaces after the
context has been created.
The
NIS+
object name that corresponds to an
FNS
composite name can be obtained using
fnlookup.1
and
fnlist.1
SEE ALSO
fnlist.1
fnlookup.1
nis+.1
nischgrp.1
nischmod.1
nischown.1
nisdefaults.1
nisls.1
fncreate.1m
xfn.3n
fns.5
fns_dns.5
fns_files.5
fns_initial_context.5
fns_nis.5
fns_policies.5
fns_references.5
fns_x500.5
Created by unroff & hp-tools.
© by Hans-Peter Bischof. All Rights Reserved (1997).
Last modified 07/October/97
