A modern computer system that's not part of a network is even more of an anomaly today than it was when we published the first edition of this book in 1991. But however widespread networks have become, managing a network and getting it to perform well can still be a problem. Managing NFS and NIS, in a new edition based on Solaris 8, is a guide to two tools that are absolutely essential to distributed computing environments: the Network Filesystem (NFS) and the Network Information System (formerly called the "yellow pages" or YP). The Network Filesystem, developed by Sun Microsystems, is fundamental to most Unix networks. It lets systems ranging from PCs and Unix workstations to large mainframes access each other's files transparently, and is the standard method for sharing files between different computer systems. As popular as NFS is, it's a "black box" for most users and administrators. Updated for NFS Version 3, Managing NFS and NIS offers detailed access to what's inside, including:

• How to plan, set up, and debug an NFS network

• Using the NFS automounter

• Diskless workstations

• PC/NFS

• A new transport protocol for NFS (TCP/IP)

• New security options (IPSec and Kerberos V5)

• Diagnostic tools and utilities

• NFS client and server tuning

NFS isn't really complete without its companion, NIS, a distributed database service for managing the most important administrative files, such as the passwd file and the hosts file. NIS centralizes administration of commonly replicated files, allowing a single change to the database rather than requiring changes on every system on the network. If you are managing a network of Unix systems, or are thinking of setting up a Unix network, you can't afford to overlook this book.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 7 Ratings

A note from one of the co-authors - 2004-03-03
Reviewer Rating:
Hello, My name is Mike Eisler, and I am one of the
co-authors of Managing NFS and NIS, Second Edition.
I'm writing this note to offer additional information
to potential readers.

At the time I submitted this note, most of the
customer reviews for this book referred to the first edition.
One of the reviews states that the book is focused on NFS
version 2 over UDP and the old style automounter.
Actually, you'll find the second edition of our book
is more modern. New topics in the second edition
include NFS version 3, NFS over TCP, modern autofs-based
automounters, Kerberos V5 authentication for NFS, NFS Access
Control Lists (ACLs), and client side fail over.

Another difference is that first edition of this book
used SunOS 4.x as a reference for examples. The second
edition uses Solaris 8.

The second edition provides information you won't find
in NFS product documentation, such as using tools like ethereal
to debug NFS problems. This book will give you the benefit of
insights from people who probably wrote some of the code for
your clients and servers. You may find (and I hope) that
it will save you the trouble reporting a problem to
your vendor's customer support line.

Thank you for considering our book.

Fairly Outdated - 2001-01-11
Reviewer Rating:
This book is quite outdated. For example, it predates NFS version 3, NFS over TCP (mostly the default these days), or autofs.

If you are a beginner and are looking for fundamental information this book might be useful if you remain aware of its shortcomings. It covers the fundamentals of NFS V2 over UDP, and NIS quite well, and has a good troubleshooting section, which might help beginners negotiate the interoperability and tuning issues that are common in today's multivendor environments. It covers automounting issues quite well, from an "automount" (SunOS 4) perspective.

NFS, NIS and automounter, a great combonation! - 2002-11-20
Reviewer Rating:
Anyone who has ever administered a network of at least 3-4 servers (if not more) will find individually updating accounts, software and such to be a burden. I found myself in this situation not too long ago, and then I picked up this book, and found the answers I was looking for.

Most Unix admins have heard of NFS and NIS but might not have considered using them together. This book gives a very thorough discussion each topic, how to set it up, how to deal with advanced issues, and how to troubleshoot. Admins will really develop an appreciation for how useful these tools can be, especially when used together.

Though LDAP is gaining prominence, a network utilizing NIS, NFS, and automounter is still a very nice network to administer. Even just learning NFS/automounter is time well spent because it is a service not likely to go away. I really felt this this book was worth the time and money because it really helps the intermediate to advanced admin better gain control of the network (instead of the network controlling him :). Definintely give this book a try. Enjoy!

The standard for NFS/NIS - 2001-03-24
Reviewer Rating:
O'Reilly puts out so many well written books and the quality of the authors is usually the highest, and this book is no exception. Both of these subjects are covered in more than enough detail for anyone need to setup NFS, NIS, or both. It is written in such a way that you son't have to read straight through, but can use it as a reference for the information you need. I would recommend this book for anyone neededing a decent to thorough understanding of this topic.

Very Solaris centric - 2005-08-28
Reviewer Rating:
I primarly use *BSD and was hoping to learn about NFS/NIS from this book, more than what I had already gleaned from the man pages. However this book is very heavily geared towards the Solaris OS. It does give exlamples of where the filename(s) or folder structures under a different flavor of Unix would be, but exept for these small tables, the rest of the text uses only the Solaris names/folders.

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