nss - Name Service Switch configuration file
Each call to a function which retrieves data from a system database like the
password or group database is handled by the Name Service Switch
implementation in the GNU C library. The various services provided are
implemented by independent modules, each of which naturally varies widely from
the other.
The default implementations coming with the GNU C library are by default
conservative and do not use unsafe data. This might be very costly in some
situations, especially when the databases are large. Some modules allow the
system administrator to request taking shortcuts if these are known to be
safe. It is then the system administrator's responsibility to ensure the
assumption is correct.
There are other modules where the implementation changed over time. If an
implementation used to sacrifice speed for memory consumption, it might create
problems if the preference is switched.
The
/etc/default/nss file contains a number of variable assignments. Each
variable controls the behavior of one or more NSS modules. White spaces are
ignored. Lines beginning with '#' are treated as comments.
The variables currently recognized are:
-
NETID_AUTHORITATIVE = TRUE|FALSE
- If set to TRUE, the NIS backend for the
initgroups(3) function will accept the information from the
netid.byname NIS map as authoritative. This can speed up the
function significantly if the group.byname map is large. The
content of the netid.byname map is used as is. The system
administrator has to make sure it is correctly generated.
-
SERVICES_AUTHORITATIVE =
TRUE|FALSE
- If set to TRUE, the NIS backend for the
getservbyname(3) and getservbyname_r(3) functions will
assume that the services.byservicename NIS map exists and is
authoritative, particularly that it contains both keys with /proto and
without /proto for both primary service names and service aliases. The
system administrator has to make sure it is correctly generated.
-
SETENT_BATCH_READ = TRUE|FALSE
- If set to TRUE, the NIS backend for the setpwent(3)
and setgrent(3) functions will read the entire database at once and
then hand out the requests one by one from memory with every corresponding
getpwent(3) or getgrent(3) call respectively. Otherwise,
each getpwent(3) or getgrent(3) call might result in a
network communication with the server to get the next entry.
/etc/default/nss
The default configuration corresponds to the following configuration file:
NETID_AUTHORITATIVE=FALSE
SERVICES_AUTHORITATIVE=FALSE
SETENT_BATCH_READ=FALSE
nsswitch.conf