NAME
rpc.ypxfrd - NIS map transfer server
SYNOPSIS
/usr/sbin/rpc.ypxfrd [ -d path ] [ -p port ] [ --debug ]
/usr/sbin/rpc.ypxfrd --version
DESCRIPTION
rpc.ypxfrd is used for speed up the transfer of very large NIS maps
from a NIS master to the NIS slave server. If a NIS slave server
receives a message that there is a new map, it will start ypxfr for
transfering the new map. ypxfr will read the contents of a map from
the master server using the yp_all() function. This process can take
several minutes when there are very large maps which have to be stored
by the database library.
The rpc.ypxfrd server speeds up the transfer process by allowing NIS
slave servers to simply copy the master server’s map files rather than
building their own from scratch. rpc.ypxfrd uses an RPC-based file
transfer protocol, so that there is no need for building a new map.
rpc.ypxfrd could be started by inetd. But since it starts very slowly,
it should be started after ypserv from /etc/init.d/ypxfrd.
OPTIONS
--debug
Causes the server to run in debugging mode. In debug mode, the
server does not background itself and prints extra status
messages to stderr for each request that it revceives.
-d directory
rpc.ypxfrd is using this directory instead of /var/yp
-p port
rpc.ypxfrd will bind itself to this port, which makes it
possible to have a router filter packets to the NIS ports. This
can restricted the access to the NIS server from hosts on the
Internet.
--version
Prints the version number
SECURITY
rpc.ypxfrd uses the same functions for checking a host as ypserv. At
first, rpc.ypxfrd will check a request from an address with
/etc/ypserv.securenets. If the host is allowed to connect to the
server, rpc.ypxfrd will uses the rules from /etc/ypserv.conf to check
the requested map. If a mapname doesn’t match a rule, rpc.ypxfrd will
look for the YP_SECURE key in the map. If it exists, rpc.ypxfrd will
only allow requests on a reserved port.
FILES
/etc/ypserv.conf /var/yp/securenets
SEE ALSO
ypserv(8), makedbm(8), yppush(8), ypxfr(8)
BUGS
The FreeBSD ypxfrd protocol is not compatible with that used by SunOS.
This is unfortunate but unavoidable: Sun’s protocol is not freely
available, and even if it were it would probably not be useful since
the SunOS NIS v2 implimentation uses the original ndbm package for its
map databases whereas the other implimentation uses GNU DBM or Berkeley
DB. These packages uses vastly different file formats. Furthermore,
ndbm and gdbm are byte-order sensitive and not very smart about it,
meaning that a gdbm or ndbm database created on a big endian system
can’t be read on a little endian system. The FreeBSD ypxfrd protocol
checks, if both, master and slave, uses the same database packages and,
if necessary, the byte order of the system.
AUTHOR
ypxfrd protocol and FreeBSD Implementation: Bill Paul
<wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu>
Linux Implementation: Thorsten Kukuk <kukuk@suse.de>