Chapter 1. Solaris Naming Services Overview

Naming services, like NIS and NIS+, have long been an integral part of the Solaris operating environment. Now, for the first time in over 10 years, Sun is introducing a new naming service into the Solaris operating environment to provide functionality equivalent to that of NIS and NIS+. Unlike its predecessors, the new LDAP naming service stores its data in a directory that is accessible from a standard network protocol. The directory not only stores operating system information, but it also makes an excellent repository for application data.

Just as TCP/IP and HTTP became the foundation of corporate intranets and extranets in the 90s, directory services based on the standard Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) will be requirements in the next millennium. Although legacy Solaris directory services like NIS and NIS+ still play an important role in an organization, the emergence of LDAP as an industry standard creates opportunities for directory service consolidation and data sharing among applications.

Realizing that LDAP technology is new to many Sun customers, we present in this Sun BluePrint™ the information system administrators and system planners need to start exploring Solaris LDAP deployment possibilities. This introduction starts with a definition of what exactly a naming service is, followed by an overview of the familiar legacy Solaris naming services.