Hello, can I help you ?
I manage a small network including 3 sparcstations and 3 Linux computers.
I have installed NIS on all the computers and I can tell it works !
To be more precise :
- The NIS master is a Solaris station
- The following tables are shared :
- hosts.byname yquem
- hosts.byaddr
- auto.tools (custom auto-mounting table)
- passwd.byuid
- passwd.byname
- netgroup.byhost
- netgroup.byuser
- netgroup
- group.bygid
- group.byname
- auto.master
- auto.home
- mail.byaddr
- mail.aliases
There are a few differences between The Solaris NIS and the Linux NIS. But they are compliant.
The main difference I have noticed is that Linux runs only in Broadcast mode to identify the NIS master on boot. But that's not an issue.
I heard about NIS+, FNS(Federated Naming Service), LDAP(Lightweight Directory Access Protocol). I think LDAP is the newest one but setting up and managing an LDAP naming service is more complex and requires careful planning ,moreover, it did not support Solaris 8 and below. I think NIS isn't obsolete yet but may be in the next version of Solaris.