nss(5) — Linux manual page

NAME | DESCRIPTION | FILES | EXAMPLES | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

nss(5)                     File Formats Manual                    nss(5)

NAME         top

       nss - Name Service Switch configuration file

DESCRIPTION         top

       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.

FILES         top

       /etc/default/nss

EXAMPLES         top

       The default configuration corresponds to the following
       configuration file:

           NETID_AUTHORITATIVE=FALSE
           SERVICES_AUTHORITATIVE=FALSE
           SETENT_BATCH_READ=FALSE

SEE ALSO         top

       nsswitch.conf

COLOPHON         top

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Linux man-pages 6.9.1          2024-05-02                         nss(5)

Pages that refer to this page: nsswitch.conf(5)systemd-resolved.service(8)