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NAME

       nscd.conf - configuration file for Name Service Caching Daemon

DESCRIPTION

       /etc/nscd.conf  configures  the  caches used by nscd(8) as well as some
       generic options.  nscd(8) is able to use  a  configuration  file  at  a
       different  location, when supplied with the -f or --config-file command
       line option.

       The configuration file consists of a set of lines.   Empty  lines,  and
       text after a '#' is ignored.  All remaining lines denote the setting of
       an option.  White space before and after options, and  between  options
       and option arguments is ignored.

       There  are  two  kinds  of options: General options influence nscd(8)'s
       general  behaviour,  while  cache  related  options  only  affect   the
       specified cache. Options are set like this:

         general_option option
         cache_option cache_name option

GENERAL OPTIONS

       logfile file
              Specifies the name of the debug log-file that nscd(8) should use
              if debug-level is higher than 0.  If this  option  is  not  set,
              nscd(8) will write its debug output to stderr.

       debug-level level
              If  level  is  higher  than  0,  nscd(8)  will create some debug
              output. The higher the level, the more verbose the output.

       threads #threads
              This option sets the number of threads that nscd(8)  should  use
              by  default. It can be overridden by calling nscd(8) with the -t
              or --nthreads argument. If neither this configuration option nor
              the  command  line  argument is given, nscd(8) uses 5 threads by
              default. The minimum is 3. More threads means more  simultaneous
              connections that nscd(8) can handle.

       max-threads #threads
              Specifies the maximum number of threads to be started.

       server-user user
              By  default, nscd(8) is run as user root. This option can be set
              to force nscd(8) to  drop  root  privileges  after  startup.  It
              cannot  be  used  when nscd(8) is called with the -S or --secure
              argument. Also note that some services require that nscd run  as
              root, so using this may break those lookup services.

       stat-user user
              Specifies the user who is allowed to request statistics.

       paranoia bool
              bool  must  be  one of yes or no.  Enabling paranoia mode causes
              nscd(8) to restart itself periodically.

       restart-interval time
              Sets the restart interval to time seconds if periodic restart is
              enabled by enabling paranoia mode. The default value is 3600.

CACHE OPTIONS

       All cache options take two arguments. The first one denotes the service
       or cache the option should affect. Currently  service  can  be  one  of
       passwd, group, or hosts.

       enable-cache service bool
              bool  must  be  one  of  yes  or  no.  Each cache is disabled by
              default and must be enabled explicitly by setting  this  options
              to yes.

       positive-time-to-live service secs
              This  is  the  number  of  seconds after which a cached entry is
              removed from the cache. This defaults to  3600  seconds  (i.  e.
              one hour).

       negative-time-to-live service secs
              If an entry is not found by the Name Service, it is added to the
              cache and marked as "not existent". This option sets the  number
              of seconds after which such a not existent entry is removed from
              the cache. This defaults to 20 seconds for the password and host
              caches and to 60 seconds for the group cache.

       suggested-size service prime-number
              This  option sets the size of the hash that is used to store the
              cache entries. As this is a hash, it should be reasonably larger
              than the maximum number of entries that is expected to be cached
              simultaneously and should be a prime number. It  defaults  to  a
              size of 211 entries.

       check-files service bool
              bool  must  be  one of yes (default) or no.  If file checking is
              enabled, nscd(8) periodically checks the  modification  time  of
              /etc/passwd,  /etc/group,  or /etc/hosts (for the passwd, group,
              and host cache respectively) and invalidates the  cache  if  the
              file has changed since the last check.

       persistent service bool
              bool  must  be  one of yes (default) or no.  Keep the content of
              the  cache  for  service  over  nscd(8)  restarts.  Useful  when
              paranoia mode is set.

       shared service bool
              bool  must be one of yes (default) or no.  The memory mapping of
              the nscd(8) databases for service is shared with the clients  so
              that  they  can directly search in them instead of having to ask
              the daemon over the socket each time a lookup is performed.

       reload-count #number
              Sets the number of times a cached record is reloaded  before  it
              is  pruned from the cache. Each cache record has a timeout, when
              that timeout expires, nscd(8) will either reload it  (query  the
              NSS service again if the data hasn't changed), or drop it.

       max-db-size service number-of-bytes
              Sets the maximum allowable size for the service.

       auto-propagate service bool
              When  set  to  no  for passwd or group service, then the .byname
              requests are not added to  passwd.byuid  or  group.bygid  cache.
              This  may  help  for  tables containing multiple records for the
              same id.

EXAMPLE

       # This is a comment.

           logfile                 /var/log/nscd.log
           threads                 6
           server-user             nobody
           debug-level             0

           enable-cache            passwd          yes
           positive-time-to-live   passwd          600
           negative-time-to-live   passwd          20
           suggested-size          passwd          211
           check-files             passwd          yes

           enable-cache            group           yes
           positive-time-to-live   group           3600
           negative-time-to-live   group           60
           suggested-size          group           211
           check-files             group           yes

           enable-cache            hosts           yes
           positive-time-to-live   hosts           3600
           negative-time-to-live   hosts           20
           suggested-size          hosts           211
           check-files             hosts           yes

SEE ALSO

       nscd(8), nsswitch.conf(5)