On 07/06/99 11:15:39 you wrote:

Is this the reason that you all do this? I thought it was because Corp IT never had reliable NIS services and you were binding to a server that you knew was "blessed" and stable?

Hey, NIS services were stable when *I* left Netapp. If you've had problems since then drop me a line and I'll be happy to help out.

Anyways, I'm the Corp IT Manager watching over the LAN, and a boatload of services, including NIS at this time. I know that Duane is installing new NIS servers/slaves per network over in San Tomas to improve the quality of our NIS services.

This isn't going to help NIS stability unless it is done correctly. In any case the files should be copied locally to the filers anyway, as was the case when I left Netapp and as others have suggested. If you really want to improve QoS you'll need to realize that some things that the filer does (such as NIS client functionaltiy) are not reliable enough for some networks, and one such network may be yours.

The questions, though, is that are people going to continue to hardcode in a server, so even if I had 5 NIS servers/slaves per network, it wouldn't make a difference?

Unless you control *every* device on those networks (and I suspect you don't), not hardcoding for a server (although it should be *multiple* servers) is just asking for trouble. It all depends on what your environment is. You can also run into problems with loading... balancing by hand has many advantages. And you always have the local files to fall back on. Jay has it exactly right, and sounds like he speaks from experience. These are practical things you learn that are difficult to teacher younger incoming admins who think things should just work. :)

Perhaps someday LDAP can eliminate all of this mess.

Bruce