nisaddent creates entries in NIS+ tables from their corresponding /etc files and NIS maps. This operation is customized for each of the standard tables that are used in the administration of Solaris systems. The type argument specifies the type of the data being processed. Legal values for this type are one of aliases, bootparams, ethers, group, hosts, ipnodes, netid, netmasks, networks, passwd, protocols, publickey, rpc, services, shadow, or timezone for the standard tables, or key-value for a generic two-column (key, value) table. For a site specific table, which is not of key-value type, one can use nistbladm(1) to administer it.

The NIS+ tables should have already been created by nistbladm(1), nissetup(1M), or nisserver(1M).

It is easier to use nispopulate(1M) instead of nisaddent to populate the system tables.

By default, nisaddent reads from the standard input and adds this data to the NIS+ table associated with the type specified on the command line. An alternate NIS+ table may be specified with the -t option. For type key-value, a table specification is required.

Note that the data type can be different than the table name (-t). For example, the automounter tables have key-value as the table type.

Although, there is a shadow data type, there is no corresponding shadow table. Both the shadow and the passwd data is stored in the passwd table itself.

Files may be processed using the -f option, and NIS version 2 ( YP) maps may be processed using the -y option. The merge option is not available when reading data from standard input.

When a ypdomain is specified, the nisaddent command takes its input from the dbm files for the appropriate NIS map (mail.aliases, bootparams, ethers.byaddr, group.byname, hosts.byaddr, hosts.byname, ipnodes.byaddr,ipnodes.byname, netid.byname, netmasks.byaddr, networks.byname, passwd.byname, protocols.byname, publickey.byname, rpc.bynumber, services.byname, or timezone.byname). An alternate NIS map may be specified with the -Y option. For type key-value, a map specification is required. The map must be in the /var/yp/ypdomain directory on the local machine. Note that ypdomain is case sensitive. ypxfr(1M) can be used to get the NIS maps.

If a nisdomain is specified, nisaddent operates on the NIS+ table in that NIS+ domain, otherwise the default domain is used.

In terms of performance, loading up the tables is fastest when done through the dbm files (-y).

To accommodate other credential entries used by other authentication mechanisms stored in the cred.org_dir table, the publickey dump output has been modified to include a special algorithm type field. This format is incompatible with older versions of nisaddent. To produce dumps that can be read by older versions of nisaddent, or to load dumps created by such older versions, use the -o option.

The following options are supported:

-a

Add the file or map to the NIS+ table without deleting any existing entries. This option is the default. Note that this mode only propagates additions and modifications, not deletions.

-A

All data. This option specifies that the data within the table and all of the data in tables in the initial table's concatenation path be returned.

-d

Dump the NIS+ table to the standard output in the appropriate format for the given type. For tables of type key-value, use niscat(1) instead. To dump the cred table, dump the publickey and the netid types.

-D defaults

This option specifies a different set of defaults to be used during this operation. 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 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 is

----rmcdr---r---

-f file

Specify that file should be used as the source of input (instead of the standard input).

-m

Merge the file or map with the NIS+ table. This is the most efficient way to bring an NIS+ table up to date with a file or NIS map when there are only a small number of changes. This option adds entries that are not already in the database, modifies entries that already exist (if changed), and deletes any entries that are not in the source. Use the -m option whenever the database is large and replicated, and the map being loaded differs only in a few entries. This option reduces the number of update messages that have to be sent to the replicas. Also see the -r option.

-M

Master server only. This option specifies that lookups should be sent to the master server. This guarantees that the most up-to-date information is seen at the possible expense that the master server may be busy, or that it may be made busy by this operation.

-o

Use strictly conforming publickey files. Dumps will not add the algorithm type field used by additional authentication mechanisms that might be configured using nisauthconf(1M). 192-bit keys that are dumped using this option can be read by previous versions of nisaddent. However, the algorithm field will be lost and assumed to be "0" when read. Use the -o option when reading publickey files from previous versions of nisaddent to avoid warnings about the missing algorithm field.

-p

Process the password field when loading password information from a file. By default, the password field is ignored because it is usually not valid (the actual password appears in a shadow file).

-P

Follow concatenation path. This option specifies that lookups should follow the concatenation path of a table if the initial search is unsuccessful.

-q

Dump tables in "quick" mode. The default method for dumping tables processes each entry individually. For some tables, for example, hosts, multiple entries must be combined into a single line, so extra requests to the server must be made. In "quick" mode, all of the entries for a table are retrieved in one call to the server, so the table can be dumped more quickly. However, for large tables, there is a chance that the process will run out of virtual memory and the table will not be dumped.

-r

Replace the file or map in the existing NIS+ table by first deleting any existing entries, and then add the entries from the source (/etc files, or NIS+ maps). This option has the same effect as the -m option. The use of this option is strongly discouraged due to its adverse impact on performance, unless there are a large number of changes.

-t table

Specify that table should be the NIS+ table for this operation. This should be a relative name as compared to your default domain or the domainname if it has been specified.

-v

Verbose.

-y ypdomain

Use the dbm files for the appropriate NIS map, from the NIS domain ypdomain, as the source of input. The files are expected to be on the local machine in the /var/yp/ypdomain directory. If the machine is not an NIS server, use ypxfr(1M) to get a copy of the dbm files for the appropriate map.

-Y map

Use the dbm files for map as the source of input.

NIS_DEFAULTS

This variable contains a default string that will override the NIS+ standard defaults. If the -D switch is used, those values will then override both the NIS_DEFAULTS variable and the standard defaults. To avoid security accidents, the access rights in the NIS_DEFAULTS variable are ignored for the passwd table (but access rights specified with -D are used).

NIS_PATH

If this variable is set, and neither the nisdomain nor the table are fully qualified, each directory specified in NIS_PATH will be searched until the table is found (see nisdefaults(1)).

The following exit values are returned:

0

Successful operation.

1

Failure caused by an error other than parsing.

2

A parsing error occurred on an entry. A parsing error does not cause termination; the invalid entries are simply skipped.

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

niscat(1), nischmod(1), nischttl(1), nisdefaults(1), nistbladm(1), nisauthconf(1M), nispopulate(1M), nisserver(1M), nissetup(1M), ypxfr(1M), hosts(4), ipnodes(4), passwd(4), shadow(4), 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.