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NSS(5)                     Linux Programmer's Manual                    NSS(5)

NAME
       nss - Name Service Switch configuration file
DESCRIPTION
       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 pro-
       vided 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   ser-
              vices.byservicename NIS map exists and is authoritative, partic-
              ularly 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  set-
              grent(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.
FILES
       /etc/default/nss
EXAMPLE
       The  default  configuration  corresponds to the following configuration
       file:
       NETID_AUTHORITATIVE=FALSE
       SERVICES_AUTHORITATIVE=FALSE
       SETENT_BATCH_READ=FALSE
SEE ALSO
       nsswitch.conf
COLOPHON
       This page is part of release 3.53 of the Linux  man-pages  project.   A
       description  of  the project, and information about reporting bugs, can
       be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

Linux                             2013-02-13                            NSS(5)