jgabriel@mtecv2.mty.itesm.mx (Ing. J. Gabriel Ruiz P.) (05/24/91)
Hello all,
We're interested to install a Yellow Pages Server for all our UNIX
machines (VAX'es, RS's, DEC's, NeXT's), but we want to know about
some other options for server machines. I would appreciate very much
if some other unix systems administrators can send our experiences
with Yellow Pages Servers. I like to know mainly what kind of
machines are you using, whit how much disk space, if you're using
some kind of NFS servers, etc.
If there is much interest I'll summarize the answers I get to the
net.
Thank's a lot for your help.
Greetings,
Gabriel Ruiz
P.S. I some body know about a good book of text in the net about
Yellow Pages I will appreciate if you tell me the name and
where to get it, please.
--
Juan Gabriel Ruiz Pinto Internet:
Ing. Sistemas Electronicos jgabriel@mtecv2.mty.itesm.mx
I.T.E.S.M. Campus Monterreygt1111a@prism.gatech.EDU (Vincent Fox) (05/24/91)
jgabriel@mtecv2.mty.itesm.mx (Ing. J. Gabriel Ruiz P.) writes: > Hello all, > We're interested to install a Yellow Pages Server for all our UNIX > machines (VAX'es, RS's, DEC's, NeXT's), but we want to know about > some other options for server machines. I would appreciate very much > if some other unix systems administrators can send our experiences > with Yellow Pages Servers. I like to know mainly what kind of > machines are you using, whit how much disk space, if you're using > some kind of NFS servers, etc. Firstly, It's now officially referred to as NIS (Network Information Services) after a settlement with British Telephone and Telegraph? over the name YP. The NIS server can be any machine, not necessarily one providing NFS file services. A number of machines can be NIS slaves. Any machine requesting NIS info simply sends out a request for help from any machine in the NIS domain. The first one that answers gives it the info. This together with the automount facilities now offered on many OS's, allows building a very fault tolerant net. I always hated it when one of the servers crashed, hanging all the machines that mounted from it. Now I can let it lie until next morning, or until the villagers storm the castle. I try to strictly use Suns as file servers. SunOS is pretty full of nice features for sys-admins. The lack of a recursive option on the chown command on our HP drives me crazy anytime I must change ownership of a users whole directory. I also make use of the rdist command to back up our user files onto magneto-optical drives. Our configuration is roughly as follows: small shop 1 Sun 3/60 with 1.8 gigs of SCSI disks. Also a PYTHON Archive DAT (small 4mm tape that holds an amazing 1.2 gigs of files) for backups. Acts as NIS master. Also provide ~500 megs user home directories. 1 Sun 3/260 with 2 gigs of SMD hard drives (SMD is an alternative to SCSI) NIS slave, provides about 1.5 gigs of user filespace. Has 1/4" tape drive and a tri-density 9-track tape drive. 1 HP 9000/835. Provides about 500 megs user filespace. Strictly an NIS client, since I am trying to migrate home directories off this machine due to it's poor set of software tools. Approx 30 client machines. Sparcs, SGIs, HPs, Sun 3s, NeXT,etc. With the duplicate NIS services, and automount, the 3/260 server for instance can go down. Those users that have home directories there will not be able to get to their files, but other users will largely be unaffected. Note that only machine can be the master NIS server. All changes to NIS maps like passwd, auto.master, etc should be made on the master. Then ypxfr can be used to ensure that the slave servers get updated. -- Vincent Fox (That's Mr. Bucko to you)|Georgia Tech, the only place where Friday Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA |is only two working days away from Monday. SR-71: gt1111a@prism.gatech.edu | -- Uttered by David Sonnier during Pony Express:...!gatech!prism!gt1111a| CS3602 lab 5/10/1991 ~ 1730 EDT