Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!mit-eddie!bu-cs!bzs From: bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: YP required with NFS? Message-ID: <3453@bu-cs.BU.EDU> Date: Wed, 14-Jan-87 20:39:46 EST Article-I.D.: bu-cs.3453 Posted: Wed Jan 14 20:39:46 1987 Date-Received: Thu, 15-Jan-87 04:16:07 EST Organization: Boston U. Comp. Sci. Lines: 41 >Yes, yp is fundamentally the wrong way to do things. On SVR3 RFS you >can also do what you are talking about. Just use remote versions of any >files in question either via a symlink (on a sun) OR by just remotely mounting >a subtree over the one on a client machine. This may cleaner and easier >to manage. I have seen the latter on RFS and it is much more reasonable. >The clients also tend to survive server crashes quite well. > > Steve Blasingame (under Monster Island) Well, puff puff puff. I don't think it's obvious that "yp is fundamentally the wrong way to do things" [I'm not even sure what it means.] This idea of mapping a single file might be fine in a trivial network, but what exactly do you do when your hosts file (for example) is mapped out across many systems, such as the internet's is (and maintained in pieces by many entities, who are the only one's who have the slightest idea what new machines are coming and going in their region.) Yp may not fully solve this (tho it sort of does now by interfacing to the name server, thanks Bill), but mapping a flat file will surely never solve it. Similarly for password files, can this scheme allow a local, user editable password file and a remote, more global password file? The root password on my diskless SUN is surely different than the server's (a local entry overrides) but otherwise I just map into the server's file (security problem you say? what isn't! and I don't see how this scheme for RFS ameliorates this problem except perhaps by severely restricting possibilities.) Far be it for me to say that yp is perfect, but I don't think bashing it as fundamentally wrong is any help either, the people that designed it weren't idiots, mapping a file over NFS would have been the easy thing to do (and is done sometimes, our termcap entries are like this tho it could be yp'd to some advantage, minor issue.) There were real issues it addresses. Let's not let some operational issues besmear a fundamentally good idea. -Barry Shein, Boston University