Overview
As you learned in the previous chapter, we build computer networks to share
resources. To share or use the shared resources, the computers need some network
information necessary to communicate over the network, such as machine
addresses, user names, passwords, access permissions, printer names, and so
forth. Each machine on the network can maintain this information on its own, but
that would be a cumbersome task for a network administrator, a task prone to
errors and inconsistencies. The solution to this problem is to maintain this
information on a centralized machine called a naming server and let other
machines retrieve this information from this server, which offers what is a
called a naming service.
There are a number of naming services to support the varying needs of
networks. Solaris supports the Network Information Service (NIS), Network
Information Service Plus (NIS+), Domain Name Service (DNS), and Light Weight
Access Protocol (LDAP) directory services. All these services are run in a
client/server network environment where there are naming service clients and
naming service servers. In network services, caching is often used to improve
service performance. The naming service cache daemon, nscd, provides the caching
service for the most frequent name service requests.
The core question in this chapter is: what are the naming services and how
are they managed? In search of an answer, we will explore three thought streams:
naming service servers, naming service clients, and naming service caching. | 
