The nisln command links a NIS+ object named name to a NIS+ name linkname. If name is an indexed name (see nismatch(1)), the link points to entries within a NIS+ table. Clients wishing to look up information in the name service can use the FOLLOW_LINKS flag to force the client library to follow links to the name they point to. Further, all of the NIS+ administration commands accept the -L switch indicating they should follow links (see nis_names(3NSL) for a description of the FOLLOW_LINKS flag).

When creating the link, nisln verifies that the linked object exists. Once created, the linked object may be deleted or replaced and the link will not be affected. At that time the link will become invalid and attempts to follow it will return NIS_LINKNAMEERROR to the client. When the path attribute in tables specifies a link rather than another table, the link will be followed if the flag FOLLOW_LINKS was present in the call to nis_list() (see nis_tables(3NSL)) and ignored if the flag is not present. If the flag is present and the link is no longer valid, a warning is sent to the system logger and the link is ignored.

The following options are supported:

-L

When present, this option specifies that this command should follow links. If name is itself a link, then this command will follow it to the linked object that it points to. The new link will point to that linked object rather than to name.

-D defaults

Specify a different set of defaults to be used for the creation of the link object. The defaults string is a series of tokens separated by colons. These tokens represent the default values to be used for the generic object properties. All of the legal tokens are described below.

ttl=time

This token sets the default time to live for objects that are created by this command. The value time is specified in the format as defined by the nischttl(1) command. The default is 12 hours.

owner=ownername

This token specifies that the NIS+ principal ownername should own the created object. The default for this value is the the principal who is executing the command.

group=groupname

This token specifies that the group groupname should be the group owner for the object that is created. The default is NULL.

access=rights

This token specifies the set of access rights that are to be granted for the given object. The value rights is specified in the format as defined by the nischmod(1) command. The default value is ----rmcdr---r---.

NIS_PATH

If this variable is set, and the NIS+ name is not fully qualified, each directory specified will be searched until the object is found (see nisdefaults(1)).

The following exit values are returned:

0

Successful operation.

1

Operation failed.

See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

nisdefaults(1), nismatch(1), nisrm(1), nistbladm(1), nis_names(3NSL), nis_tables(3NSL), attributes(5)

NIS+ might not be supported in future releases of the Solaris Operating Environment. Tools to aid the migration from NIS+ to LDAP are available in the Solaris 9 operating environment. For more information, visit http://www.sun.com/directory/nisplus/transition.html.