Managing NFS and NIS ^{2nd Ed.}

At many sites, the Network Filesystem (NFS) is the glue that holds together large, diverse collections of computers. But NFS is a "black box" for most users and administrators. This book shows you what's in the box: how to plan a network filesystem, how to set it up, how to optimize its performance, how to plug security holes, and how to solve many other common problems. It also discusses many special topics, including the automounter (a facility for mounting and dismounting filesystems as they are used), file locking, and the widely used PC/NFS.

Managing NFS and NIS, Second Edition, brings you up to date with the latest development in NFS. It provides extensive coverage of NFS's new security options (IPSec and Kerberos), NFS over TCP, performance tuning and debugging. It covers NFS Versions 2 and 3, which are implemented by Solaris 8, Linux, and all other modern Unix and Unix-like operating systems. it also provides a look at what's coming in NFS Version 4, which is now on the IETF standards track.

If you have worked with a network, you are well aware that the complexity of managing a network increases much faster than the number of nodes. This book shows you how to use the Network Information System (NIS) to reduce the overhead of network administration by maintaining a single copy of the most important configuration files on a master server. This book also shows you how to integrate NIS with DNS, how to organize your management information effectively, and how to use NIS to manage automount maps.

NFS has been implemented on more platforms than any other network filesystem and continues to set the standard for reliability, security, and performance. If you are managing a computer network, you need this book.

1. Networking Fundamentals
• Networking overview
• Physical and data link layers
• Network layer
• Transport layer
• The session and presentation layers
2. Introduction to Directory Services
• Purpose of directory services
• Brief survey of common directory services
• Name service switch
• Which directory service to use
3. Network Information Service Operation
• Masters, slaves, and clients
• Basics of NIS management
• Files managed under NIS
• Trace of a key match
4. System Management Using NIS
• NIS network design
• Managing map files
• Advanced NIS server administration
• Managing multiple domains
5. Living with Multiple Directory Servers
• Domain name servers
• Implementation
• Fully qualified and unqualified hostnames
• Centralized versus distributed management
• Migrating from NIS to DNS for host naming
• What next?
6. System Administration Using the Network File System
• Setting up NFS
• Exporting filesystems
• Mounting filesystems
• Symbolic links
• Replication
• Naming schemes
7. Network File System Design and Operation
• Virtual filesystems and virtual nodes
• NFS protocol and implementation
• NFS components
• Caching
• File locking
• NFS futures
8. Diskless Clients
• NFS support for diskless clients
• Setting up a diskless client
• Diskless client boot process
• Managing client swap space
• Changing a client’s name
• Troubleshooting
• Configuration options
• Brief introduction to JumpStart administration
• Client/server ratios
9. The Automounter
• Automounter maps
• Invocation and the master map
• Integration with NIS
• Key and variable substitutions
• Advanced map tricks
• Side effects
10. PC/NFS Clients
• PC/NFS today
• Limitations of PC/NFS
• Configuring PC/NFS
• Common PC/NFS usage issues
• Printer services
11. File Locking
• What is file locking?
• NFS and file locking
• Troubleshooting locking problems
12. Network Security
• User-oriented network security
• How secure are NIS and NFS?
• Password and NIS security
• NFS security
• Stronger security for NFS
• Viruses
13. Network Diagnostic and Administrative Tools
• Broadcast addresses
• MAC and IP layer tools
• Remote procedure call tools
• NIS tools
• Network analyzers
14. NFS Diagnostic Tools
• NFS administration tools
• NFS statistics
• snoop
• Publicly available diagnostics
• Version 2 and Version 3 differences
• NFS server logging
• Time synchronization
15. Debugging Network Problems
• Duplicate ARP replies
• Renegade NIS server
• Boot parameter confusion
• Incorrect directory content caching
• Incorrect mount point permissions
• Asynchronous NFS error messages
16. Server-Side Performance Tuning
• Characterization of NFS behavior
• Measuring performance
• Benchmarking
• Identifying NFS performance bottlenecks
• Server tuning
17. Network Performance Analysis
• Network congestion and network interfaces
• Network partitioning hardware
• Network infrastructure
• Impact of partitioning
• Protocol filtering
18. Client-Side Performance Tuning
• Slow server compensation
• Soft mount issues
• Adjusting for network reliability problems
• NFS over wide-area networks
• NFS async thread tuning
• Attribute caching
• Mount point constructions
• Stale filehandles

1. IP Packet Routing
2. NFS Problem Diagnosis
3. Tunable Parameters

A very good book on the subject, and sorely needed.