nistbladm(1)
NAME
nistbladm - NIS+ table administration command
SYNOPSIS
nistbladm -a | -A [-D defaults] colname = value... tablename
nistbladm -a | -A [-D defaults] indexedname
nistbladm -c [-D defaults] [-p path] [-s sep] type colname =
[flags] [ , access...] tablename
nistbladm -d tablename
nistbladm -e | -E colname = value... indexedname
nistbladm -m colname = value... indexedname
nistbladm -r | -R [ colname = value...] tablename
nistbladm -r | -R indexedname
nistbladm -u [-p path] [-s sep] [-t type] [ colname =
access...] tablename
DESCRIPTION
The nistbladm command is used to administer NIS+ tables.
There are five primary operations that it performs: creating
and deleting tables, adding entries to, modifying entries
within, and removing entries from tables.
Though NIS+ does not place restrictions on the size of
tables or entries, the size of data has an impact on the
performance and the disk space requirements of the NIS+
server. NIS+ is not designed to store huge pieces of data,
such as files; instead, pointers to files should be stored
in NIS+.
NIS+ design is optimized to support 10,000 objects with a
total size of 10M bytes. If the requirements exceed the
above, it is suggested that the domain hierarchy be created,
or the data stored in the tables be pointers to the actual
data, instead of the data itself.
When creating tables, a table type, type, and a list of
column definitions must be provided.
type is a string that is stored in the table and later used
by the service to verify that entries being added to it are
of the correct type.
Syntax for column definitions is:
colname=[flags][,access]
flags is a combination of:
S Searchable. Specifies that searches can be done on the
column's values (see nismatch(1)).
I Case-insensitive (only makes sense in combination with
S). Specifies that searches should ignore case.
C Crypt. Specifies that the column's values should be
encrypted.
B Binary data (does not make sense in combination with
S). If not set, the column's values are expected to be
null terminated ASCII strings.
X XDR encoded data (only makes sense in combination with
B).
access is specified in the format as defined by the nisch-
mod(1) command.
When manipulating entries, this command takes two forms of
entry name. The first uses a series of space separated
colname=value pairs that specify column values in the entry.
The second is a NIS+ indexed name, indexedname, of the form:
[ colname=value, ... ],tablename
OPTIONS
The following options are supported:
-a | A
Adds entries to a NIS+ table. The difference between
the lowercase `a' and the uppercase `A' is in the
treatment of preexisting entries. The entry's contents
are specified by the column=value pairs on the com-
mand line. Values for all columns must be specified
when adding entries to a table.
Normally, NIS+ reports an error if an attempt is made
to add an entry to a table that would overwrite an
entry that already exists. This prevents multiple par-
ties from adding duplicate entries and having one of
them get overwritten. If you wish to force the add,
the uppercase `A' specifies that the entry is to be
added, even if it already exists. This is analogous to
a modify operation on the entry.
-c Creates a table named tablename in the namespace. The
table that is created must have at least one column
and at least one column must be searchable.
-d tablename
Destroys the table named tablename. The table that is
being destroyed must be empty. The table's contents
can be deleted with the -R option below.
-e|E Edits the entry in the table that is specified by
indexdname. indexdname must uniquely identify a single
entry. It is possible to edit the value in a column
that would change the indexed name of an entry.
The change (colname=value) may affect other entries in
the table if the change results in an entry whose
indexed name is different from indexedname and which
matches that of another existing entry. In this case,
the -e option will fail and an error will be reported.
The -E option will force the replacement of the exist-
ing entry by the new entry (effectively removing two
old entries and adding a new one).
-m A synonym for -E. This option has been superseded by
the -E option.
-r|R Removes entries from a table. The xentry is specified
by either a series of column=value pairs on the com-
mand line, or an indexed name that is specified as
entryname. The difference between the interpretation
of the lowercase `r' versus the uppercase `R' is in
the treatment of non-unique entry specifications. Nor-
mally the NIS+ server will disallow an attempt to
remove an entry when the search criterion specified
for that entry resolves to more than one entry in the
table. However, it is sometimes desirable to remove
more than one entry, as when you are attempting to
remove all of the entries from a table. In this case,
using the uppercase `R' will force the NIS+ server to
remove all entries matching the passed search cri-
terion. If that criterion is null and no column
values specified, then all entries in the table will
be removed.
-u Updates attributes of a table. This allows the con-
catenation path (-p), separation character (specified
with the (-s)), column access rights, and table type
string (-t) of a table to be changed. Neither the
number of columns, nor the columns that are searchable
may be changed.
-D defaults
When creating objects, this option specifies a
different set of defaults to be used during this
operation. The defaults string is a series of tokens
separated by colons. These tokens represent the
default values to be used for the generic object pro-
perties. All of the legal tokens are described below.
ttl=time
This token sets the default time to live for
objects that are created by this command. The
value time is specified in the format as defined
by the nischttl(1) command. The default value is
12 hours.
owner=ownername
This token specifies that the NIS+ principal
ownername should own the created object. Nor-
mally this value is the same as the principal
who is executing the command.
group=groupname
This token specifies that the group groupname
should be the group owner for the object that is
created. The default value is NULL.
access=rights
This token specifies the set of access rights
that are to be granted for the given object. The
value rights is specified in the format as
defined by the nischmod(1) command. The default
value is ----rmcdr---r---.
-p path
When creating or updating a table, this option speci-
fies the table's search path. When a nis_list() func-
tion is invoked, the user can specify the flag
FOLLOW_PATH to tell the client library to continue
searching tables in the table's path if the search
criteria used does not yield any entries. The path
consists of an ordered list of table names, separated
by colons. The names in the path must be fully quali-
fied.
-s sep
When creating or updating a table, this option speci-
fies the table's separator character. The separator
character is used by niscat(1) when displaying tables
on the standard output. Its purpose is to separate
column data when the table is in ASCII form. The
default value is a space.
-t type
When updating a table, this option specifies the
table's type string.
EXAMPLES
Example 1: Creating an Unmodifiable Table
This example creates a table named hobbies in the directory
foo.com. of the type hobby_tbl with two searchable columns,
name and hobby.
example% nistbladm -c hobby_tbl name=S,\
a+r,o+m hobby=S,a+r hobbies.foo.com.
The column name has read access for all (that is, owner,
group, and world) and modify access for only the owner. The
column hobby is readable by all, but not modifiable by any-
one.
In this example, if the access rights had not been speci-
fied, the table's access rights would have come from either
the standard defaults or the NIS_DEFAULTS variable (see
below).
Example 2: Adding Entries to the Table
To add entries to this table:
example% nistbladm -a name=bob hobby=skiing hobbies.foo.com.
example% nistbladm -a name=sue hobby=skiing hobbies.foo.com.
example% nistbladm -a name=ted hobby=swimming hobbies.foo.com.
Example 3: Adding the Concatenation Path
In the following example, the common root domain is foo.com
(NIS+ requires at least two components to define the root
domain) and the concatenation path for the subdomains bar
and baz are added:
example% nistbladm -u -p hobbies.bar.foo.com.:hobbies.baz.foo.com. hobbies
Example 4: Deleting Skiers from the List
To delete the skiers from our list:
example% nistbladm -R hobby=skiing hobbies.foo.com.
Note: The use of the -r option would fail because there
are two entries with the value of skiing.
Example 5: Naming a Column with no Flags Set
To create a table with a column that is named with no flags
set, you supply only the name and the equals (=) sign as
follows:
example% nistbladm -c notes_tbl name=S,a+r,o+m note= notes.foo.com.
This example created a table, named notes.foo.com., of type
notes_tbl with two columns name and note. The note column is
not searchable.
Example 6: Protecting Terminal Characters
When entering data for columns in the form of a value
string, it is essential that terminal characters be pro-
tected by single or double quotes. These are the characters
equals (=), comma (,), left bracket ([), right bracket (]),
and space ( ). These characters are parsed by NIS+ within an
indexed name. These characters are protected by enclosing
the entire value in double quote (") characters as follows:
example% nistbladm -a fullname="Joe User" nickname=Joe nicknames
If there is any doubt about how the string will be parsed,
it is better to enclose it in quotes.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
NIS_DEFAULTS
This variable contains a defaults string that will be
override the NIS+ standard defaults. If the -D
switch is used those values will then override both
the NIS_DEFAULTS variable and the standard defaults.
NIS_PATH
If this variable is set, and the NIS+ table name is
not fully qualified, each directory specified will be
searched until the table is found. See nisdefaults(1).
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values are returned:
0 Successful operation.
1 Operation failed.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attri-
butes:
____________________________________________________________
| ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
|_____________________________|_____________________________|
| Availability | SUNWnisu |
|_____________________________|_____________________________|
SEE ALSO
nis+(1), niscat(1), nischmod(1), nischown(1), nischttl(1),
nisdefaults(1), nismatch(1), nissetup(1M), attributes(5)
NOTES
NIS+ might not be supported in future releases of the
SolarisTM Operating Environment. Tools to aid the migration
from NIS+ to LDAP are available in the Solaris 9 operating
environment. For more information, visit
http://www.sun.com/directory/nisplus/transition.html.
WARNINGS
To modify one of the entries, say, for example, from "bob"
to "robert":
example% nistbladm -m name=robert [name=bob],hobbies
Notice that "[name=bob],hobbies" is an indexed name, and
that the characters `[' (open bracket) and `]' (close
bracket) are interpreted by the shell. When typing entry
names in the form of NIS+ indexed names, the name must be
protected by using single quotes.
It is possible to specify a set of defaults such that you
cannot read or modify the table object later.
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