xref: /freebsd/usr.sbin/rpc.ypxfrd/rpc.ypxfrd.8 (revision fa9896e082a1046ff4fbc75fcba4d18d1f2efc19)
1.\" Copyright (c) 1995, 1996
2.\"	Bill Paul <wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu>.  All rights reserved.
3.\"
4.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
5.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
6.\" are met:
7.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
8.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
9.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
10.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
11.\"    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
12.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
13.\"    must display the following acknowledgement:
14.\"	This product includes software developed by Bill Paul.
15.\" 4. Neither the name of the author nor the names of contributors
16.\"    may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
17.\"    without specific prior written permission.
18.\"
19.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY Bill Paul AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
20.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
21.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
22.\" ARE DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL Bill Paul OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
23.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
24.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
25.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
26.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
27.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
28.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
29.\" SUCH DAMAGE.
30.\"
31.Dd June 2, 1996
32.Dt RPC.YPXFRD 8
33.Os
34.Sh NAME
35.Nm rpc.ypxfrd
36.Nd "NIS map transfer server"
37.Sh SYNOPSIS
38.Nm
39.Op Fl p Ar path
40.Sh DESCRIPTION
41The
42.Nm
43utility is used to speed up the distribution of very large NIS maps
44from NIS master to NIS slave servers.
45The normal method for transferring
46maps involves several steps:
47.Bl -bullet -offset indent
48.It
49The master server calls
50.Xr yppush 8
51to inform the slave servers to start a transfer.
52.It
53The slave servers invoke
54.Xr ypxfr 8 ,
55which reads the entire contents of a map from the master server
56using the yp_all() function.
57.It
58The
59.Xr ypxfr 8
60program then creates a new map database file by using the
61.Xr db 3
62library hash method to store the data that it receives from the server.
63.It
64When all the data has been retrieved,
65.Xr ypxfr 8
66moves the new file into place and sends
67.Xr ypserv 8
68on the local machine a YPPROC_CLEAR to tell it to refresh its
69database handles.
70.El
71.Pp
72This process can take several minutes when there are very large
73maps involved.
74For example: a passwd database with several tens of
75thousands of entries can consume several megabytes of disk space,
76and it can take the
77.Xr db 3
78library package a long time to sort and store all the records
79in a hash database.
80Consider also that there are two sets of map
81files:
82.Pa master.passwd.by{name,uid}
83and
84.Pa passwd.by{name,uid} .
85.Pp
86The
87.Nm
88utility speeds up the transfer process by allowing NIS slave servers to
89simply copy the master server's map files rather than building their
90own from scratch.
91Simply put,
92.Nm
93implements an RPC-based file transfer protocol.
94Transferring even
95a multi-megabyte file in this fashion takes only a few seconds compared
96to the several minutes it would take even a reasonably fast slave server
97to build a new map from scratch.
98.Pp
99The
100.Nm
101utility uses the same access restriction mechanism as
102.Xr ypserv 8 .
103This means that slave servers will only be permitted to transfer
104files if the rules in the
105.Pa securenets
106database permit it (see
107.Xr ypserv 8
108for more information on
109.Pa securenets ) .
110Furthermore, only slave servers using reserved
111ports will be allowed to transfer the
112.Pa master.passwd
113maps.
114.Sh OPTIONS
115The following option is available:
116.Bl -tag -width indent
117.It Fl p Ar path
118This option can be used to override the default path to
119the location of the NIS
120map databases.
121The compiled-in default path is
122.Pa /var/yp .
123.El
124.Sh FILES
125.Bl -tag -width Pa -compact
126.It Pa /var/yp/[domainname]/[maps]
127The NIS maps for a particular NIS domain.
128.El
129.Sh SEE ALSO
130.Xr yp 8 ,
131.Xr yppush 8 ,
132.Xr ypserv 8 ,
133.Xr ypxfr 8
134.Sh AUTHORS
135.An Bill Paul Aq Mt wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu
136.Sh BUGS
137The
138.Fx
139.Nm ypxfrd
140protocol is not compatible with that used by SunOS.
141This is unfortunate
142but unavoidable: Sun's protocol is not freely available, and even if it
143were it would probably not be useful since the SunOS NIS v2 implementation
144uses the original ndbm package for its map databases whereas the
145.Fx
146implementation uses Berkeley DB.
147These two packages use vastly different
148file formats.
149Furthermore, ndbm is byte-order sensitive and not very
150smart about it, meaning that am ndbm database created on a big endian
151system cannot be read on a little endian system.
152