Managing Nfs and Nis

by Stern, Hal

• ISBN13: 9781565925106
• ISBN10: 1565925106
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-06-01
• Publisher: Oreilly & Associates Inc

Summary

However widespread networks have become, managing a network and getting it to perform well can still be a problem. Managing NFS and NIS, 2nd Edition based on Solaris 8, is a guide to two tools that are absolutely essential to distributed computing environments: the Network Filesystem (NFS) and the Network Information System (formerly called the "yellow pages" or YP). Updated for NFS Version 3, Managing NFS and NIS, 2nd Edition offers detailed access to what's inside, including: how to plan, set up, and debug an NFS network; using the NFS automounter; diskless workstations; PC/NFS; a new transport protocol for NFS (TCP/IP); new security options (IPSec and Kerberos V5); diagnostic tools and utilities; and NFS client and server tuning. If you are managing a network of Unix systems, or are thinking of setting up a Unix network, you can't afford to overlook this book.

Author Biography

Mike Eisler graduated from the University of Central Florida with a master's degree in computer science in 1985. His first exposure to NFS and NIS came while working for Lachman Associates, Inc., where he was responsible for porting NFS and NIS to System V platforms. He later joined Sun Microsystems, Inc., responsible for projects such as NFS server performance, NFS/TCP, WebNFS, NFS secured with Kerberos V5, NFS Version 4, and JavaCard security. Mike has authored or coauthored several Request For Comments documents for the Internet Engineering Task Force, relating to NFS and security. He is currently a Technical Director at Network Appliance, Inc.

Ricardo Labiaga is a staff engineer at Sun Microsystems, Inc., where he concentrates on networking and wireless technologies. Ricardo spent 8 years in the Solaris NFS group at Sun, where he worked on a variety of development projects with a primary focus on automounting and the NFS server. Ricardo is responsible for implementing significant functionality and performance enhancements to the automounter, as well as leading the NFS Server Logging design team. He holds a master of science degree in computer engineering from The University of Texas at El Paso.

Hal Stern is a technical consultant with Sun Microsystems, where he specializes in networking, performance tuning, and kernel hacking. Hal earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Princeton University in 1984. Before joining Sun, Hal was a member of the technical staff at Polygen Corporation, developing UNIX-based molecular modelling and chemical information system products. Hal also worked on the Massive Memory Machine project as a member of the Research Staff in Princeton University's Department of Computer Science. His interests include large installation system administration, virtual memory management systems, performance, local and wide-area networking, interactive graphics, applications in financial services, cosmology, and the history of science. Hal is active in the Sun User's Group and has served on the advisory trustee board of the Princeton Broadcasting Service for seven years. Hal and his wife Toby live in Burlington, Massachusetts. At home, Hal enjoys carpentry, jazz music, cooking, and watching the stock market.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Networking Fundamentals	1	(19)
Networking Overview	2	(2)
Physical and data link layers	4	(1)
Network layer	5	(7)
Transport layer	12	(2)
The Session and presentation layers	14	(6)
Introduction to Directory Services	20	(8)
Purpose of directory services	20	(2)
Brief survey of common directory services	22	(5)
Name service switch	27	(1)
Which directory service to use	27	(1)
Network Information Service Operation	28	(29)
Masters, slaves, and clients	29	(3)
Basics of NIS management	32	(8)
Files managed under NIS	40	(14)
Trace of a key match	54	(3)
System Management Using NIS	57	(17)
NIS network design	57	(3)
Managing map files	60	(8)
Advanced NIS server administration	68	(3)
Managing multiple domains	71	(3)
Living with Multiple Directory Servers	74	(10)
Domain name servers	74	(3)
Implementation	77	(2)
Fully qualified and unqualified hostnames	79	(2)
Centralized versus distributed management	81	(1)
Migrating from NIS to DNS for host naming	82	(1)
What next?	83	(1)
System Administration Using the Network File System	84	(34)
Setting up NFS	85	(1)
Exporting filesystems	86	(6)
Mounting filesystems	92	(13)
Symbolic links	105	(3)
Replication	108	(5)
Naming schemes	113	(5)
Network File System Design and Operation	118	(29)
Virtual filesystems and virtual nodes	119	(1)
NFS protocol and implementation	120	(10)
NFS Components	130	(6)
Caching	136	(6)
File locking	142	(2)
NFS Futures	144	(3)
Diskless Clients	147	(24)
NFS support for diskless clients	148	(1)
Setting up a diskless client	149	(3)
Diskless client boot process	152	(5)
Managing client swap space	157	(2)
Changing a client's name	159	(1)
Troubleshooting	160	(5)
Configuration options	165	(3)
Brief introduction to JumpStart administration	168	(1)
Client/server ratios	169	(2)
The Automounter	171	(35)
Automounter maps	173	(9)
Invocation and the master map	182	(5)
Integration with NIS	187	(3)
Key and variable substitutions	190	(4)
Advanced map tricks	194	(10)
Side effects	204	(2)
PC/NFS Clients	206	(10)
PC/NFS today	206	(2)
Limitations of PC/NFS	208	(3)
Configuring PC/NFS	211	(1)
Common PC/NFS usage issues	212	(2)
Printer services	214	(2)
File Locking	216	(10)
What is file locking?	216	(3)
NFS and file locking	219	(2)
Troubleshooting locking problems	221	(5)
Network Security	226	(55)
User-oriented network security	226	(7)
How secure are NIS and NFS?	233	(1)
Password and NIS security	234	(4)
NFS security	238	(15)
Stronger security for NFS	253	(26)
Viruses	279	(2)
Networks Diagnostic and Administrative Tools	281	(55)
Broadcast addresses	283	(2)
MAC and IP layer tools	285	(20)
Remote procedure call tools	305	(10)
NIS tools	315	(8)
Network analyzers	323	(13)
NFS Diagnostic Tools	336	(43)
NFS administration tools	336	(4)
NFS statistics	340	(9)
Snoop	349	(4)
Publicly available diagnostics	353	(7)
Version 2 and Version 3 differences	360	(1)
NFS server logging	361	(15)
Time synchronization	376	(3)
Debugging Networks Problems	379	(16)
Duplicate ARP replies	379	(2)
Renegade NIS server	381	(2)
Boot parameter confussion	383	(1)
Incorrect directory content caching	384	(5)
Incorrect mount point permissions	389	(2)
Asynchronous NFS error messages	391	(4)
Server-Side Performance Tuning	395	(22)
Characterization of NFS behavior	396	(1)
Measuring performance	397	(3)
Benchmarking	400	(1)
Identifying NFS performance bottlenecks	401	(4)
Server tuning	405	(12)
Network Performance Analysis	417	(11)
Network congestion and network interfaces	417	(3)
Network partitioning hardware	420	(2)
Network infrastructure	422	(2)
Impact of partitioning	424	(2)
Protocol filtering	426	(2)
Client-Side Performance Tuning	428	(21)
Slow server compensation	428	(6)
Soft mount issues	434	(2)
Adjusting for network reliability problems	436	(2)
NFS over wide-area networks	438	(1)
NFS async thread tuning	439	(3)
Attribute caching	442	(2)
Mount point constructions	444	(1)
Stale filehandles	445	(4)
A. IP Packet Routing	449	(7)
B. NFS Problem Diagnosis	456	(4)
C. Tunable Parameters	460	(7)
Index	467