Network Information Service

Network Information Service (also Network Information System) or NIS short is a directory service for the distribution of configuration data such as user names and computer names into a computer network. NIS was at Sun Microsystems as a "Yellow Pages" (YP) client-server protocol.

NIS / YP is a central directory for user accounts, computer names and other data are used in a computer network. For example, in a typical UNIX environment, the list of users is accommodated ( for authentication ) in the / etc / passwd file. Through the use of NIS is another added "global" user list that can be used to authenticate the user on each machine.

Sun has awarded the license for this technology to virtually all Unix vendors.

The name Yellow Pages ( German: Yellow Pages ) is a registered trademark of British Telecommunications industry for her phone book in the UK. Sun therefore changed the name of the system to NIS, although all commands and functions still start with " yp ".

In modern computer networks systems such as LDAP and Kerberos are increasingly replacing NIS because they are against NIS considered advanced and safe.