NetBSD/share/man/man5/nsswitch.conf.5

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.\"  This code is derived from software contributed to The NetBSD Foundation
.\"  by Luke Mewburn.
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.Dd January 16, 1998
.Dt NSSWITCH.CONF 5
.Os NetBSD
.Sh NAME
.Nm nsswitch.conf
.Nd name-service switch configuration file
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
file specifies how the
.Xr nsdispatch 3
(name-service switch dispatcher) routines in the C library should operate.
.Pp
The configuration file controls how a process looks up various databases
containing information regarding hosts, users (passwords), groups,
netgroups, etc.
Each database comes from a source (such as local files, DNS, and
.Tn NIS ),
and the order to look up the sources is specified in
.Nm nsswitch.conf .
.Pp
If, for any reason, if the file doesn't exist, or has missing or corrupt
entries,
.Xr nsdispatch 3
will default to an entry of
.Va files
for the requested database.
.Pp
Each entry in 
.Nm
consists of a database name, and a space separated list of sources.
Each source can have an optional trailing criterion that determines
whether the next listed source is used, or the search terminates at
the current source.
Each criterion consists of one or more status codes, and actions to
take if that status code occurs.
.Ss Sources
The following sources are implemented:
.Bl -column "compat" -offset indent -compact
.Sy Source	Description
.It files	Local files, such as
.Pa /etc/hosts ,
and
.Pa /etc/passwd .
.It dns	Internet Domain Name System.
.Dq hosts
uses
.Sy IN
class entries, all other databases use
.Sy HS
class (Hesiod) entries.
.It nis	NIS (formally YP)
.It compat	support
.Sq +/-
in the
.Dq passwd
and
.Dq group
databases.
If this is present, it must be the only source for that entry.
.El
.Ss Databases
The following databases are used by the following C library functions:
.Bl -column "netgroup" -offset indent -compact
.Sy Database	Used by
.It group	
.Xr getpwent 3
.It hosts	
.Xr gethostbyname 3 ,
.Xr gethostbyaddr 3
.It netgroup	
.Xr getnetgrent 3
.It passwd	
.Xr getpwent 3
.It shells	
.Xr getusershell 3
.El
.Ss Status codes
The following status codes are available:
.Bl -column "tryagain" -offset indent -compact
.Sy Status	Description
.It success	The requested entry was found.
.It notfound	The entry is not present at this source.
.It unavail	The source is not responding, or entry is corrupt.
.It tryagain	The source is busy, and may respond to retries.
.El
.Ss Actions
For each of the status codes, one of two actions is possible:
.Bl -column "continue" -offset indent -compact
.Sy Action	Description
.It continue	Try the next source
.It return	Return with the current result
.El
.Ss Format of file
A
.Tn BNF
description of the syntax of
.Nm
is:
.Bl -column "<criterion>" -offset indent
.It <entry>	::=
<database> ":" [<source> [<criteria>]]*
.It <criteria>	::=
"[" <criterion>+ "]"
.It <criterion>	::=
<status> "=" <action>
.It <status>	::=
"success" | "notfound" | "unavail" | "tryagain"
.It <action>	::=
"return" | "continue"
.El
.Pp
Each entry starts on a new line in the file.
A
.Sq #
delimits a comment to end of line.
Blank lines are ignored.
A
.Sq \e
at the end of a line escapes the newline, and causes the next line to
be a continuation of the current line.
All entries are case-insensitive.
.Pp
The default criteria is to return on
.Dq success ,
and continue on anything else (i.e,
.Li [success=return notfound=continue unavail=continue tryagain=continue]
).
.Ss Compat mode: +/- syntax
In historical multi-source implementations, the
.Sq +
and
.Sq -
characters are used to signify the importing of user password and
group information from
.Tn NIS .
Although
.Nm
provides alternative methods of accessing distributed sources such as
.Tn NIS ,
specifying a sole source of
.Dq compat
will provide the historical behaviour.
.Pp
An alternative source for the information accessed via
.Sq +/-
can be used by specifying
.Dq passwd_compat: source .
.Dq source
in this case can be
.Sq dns ,
.Sq nis ,
or
any other source except for
.Sq files
and
.Sq compat .
.Ss Notes
Historically, many of the databases had enumeration functions, often of
the form
.Fn getXXXent .
These made sense when the databases were in local files, but don't make
sense or have lesser relevance when there are possibly multiple sources,
each of an unknown size.
The interfaces are still provided for compatibility, but the source
may not be able to provide complete entries, or duplicate entries may
be retreived if multiple sources that contain similar information are
specified.
.Pp
To ensure compatibility with previous and current implementations, the
.Dq compat
source must appear alone for a given database.
.Sh FILES
.Bl -tag -width /etc/nsswitch.conf -compact
.It Pa /etc/nsswitch.conf
The file
.Nm
resides in
.Pa /etc .
.El
.Sh EXAMPLES
To lookup hosts in
.Pa /etc/hosts
and then from the DNS, and lookup user information from
.Tn NIS
then files, use:
.Bl -column "passwd:" -offset indent
.It hosts:	files dns
.It passwd:	nis [notfound=return] files
.It group:	nis [notfound=return] files
.El
.Pp
The criteria
.Dq [notfound=return]
sets a policy of "if the user is notfound in nis, don't try files."
This treats nis as the authoritive source of information, except
when the server is down.
.Pp
If the older-style "+/-" syntax for
.Pa /etc/passwd
is required, use:
.Bl -column "passwd_compat:" -offset indent
.It passwd:	compat
.It group:	compat
.It passwd_compat:	nis
.It group_compat:	nis
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr nsdispatch 3 ,
.Xr resolv.conf 5 ,
.Xr named 8 ,
.Xr ypbind 8
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm
file format first appeared in
.Nx 1.4 .
.Sh AUTHORS
Luke Mewburn
.Aq lukem@netbsd.org
wrote this freely distributable name-service switch implementation,
using ideas from the
.Tn ULTRIX
.Xr svc.conf 5
and
.Tn Solaris
.Xr nsswitch.conf 4
manual pages.