[comp.unix.questions] NFS/YP alternative

lwv@n8emr.UUCP (Larry W. Virden) (07/01/88)

I have two questions.  First, can anyone explain why Yellow Pages requires
the files served to be in a DBM format?  Secondly, does anyone know of a similar
service that could be used for non-dbm files?  For instance, if for administrative
reasons I did NOT want to NFS mount the /usr/man and /usr/local/man pages but
instead distribute them in a manner similar to Yellow Pages, what could I do to
achieve this?

Thanks!

-- 
Larry W. Virden	 75046,606 (CIS)
674 Falls Place, Reynoldsburg, OH 43068 (614) 864-8817
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We haven't inherited the world from our parents, but borrowed it from our children.

chris@mimsy.UUCP (07/01/88)

In article <580@n8emr.UUCP> lwv@n8emr.UUCP (Larry W. Virden) writes:
>... First, can anyone explain why Yellow Pages requires
>the files served to be in a DBM format?

YP is a distributed database.  (I have no idea whether Sun admits it,
but that it is, if a limited one.)  Before you can have a distributed
database, you have to have a database.  DBM format was there.  (Using
it, especially unmodified, was probably a bad idea, but that is a
different diatribe :-) .)
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163)
Domain:	chris@mimsy.umd.edu	Path:	uunet!mimsy!chris

sxn%ingersoll@Sun.COM (Stephen X. Nahm) (07/04/88)

In article <580@n8emr.UUCP> lwv@n8emr.UUCP (Larry W. Virden) writes:
>I have two questions.  First, can anyone explain why Yellow Pages requires
>the files served to be in a DBM format?

YP doesn't require this.  The implementation of YP that Sun has built is based
on DBM.  However, YP is an ONC service, and the interface that defines it is
its protocol specification.  An RPCGEN-ready version of this specification is
included in the latest release of RPCSRC, version 3.9, which is the unlicensed
implementation of RPC/XDR and associated utilities.

A YP server can use any data storage technology it pleases to manage the data
under its purview.

Steve Nahm                              sxn@sun.COM or sun!sxn