netinfo configuration

G

Goedtkindt

Registered
Is netinfo apple (or Next ) technology or is it a more general Unix tool ? Where to find info on it. How to integrate it in multiplatform unix networks (Solaris/ linux) ?

How do I specify NFS shares on my machine, and how do I mount other shares in the /mnt directory. I now have to mount them each time I log on using the command line.
Netinfo looks like the place to put these things in, but I cannot find adequate documentation on the keywords and syntax to use.

How to make nslookup work correctly :
[mac1:~] peter% nslookup mac1
Server: mac1
Address: 0.0.0.0

*** mac1 can't find mac1: No response from server
[mac1:~] peter%


Thanks, Peter
 
The URL
http://www.daemonnews.org/200011/osx-daemon.html

explains netinfo only vaguely, it states that netinfo can find missing information from a NIS database, but fails to explain how to set this up... For this to happen, does one need to check the "connect to parent netinfo server"
check-box in the network control pannel or not ?
I agree with the URL that "information on netinfo is sparce and outdated".

bedankt DJ :)
 
Originally posted by Goedtkindt
How to make nslookup work correctly :
[mac1:~] peter% nslookup mac1
Server: mac1
Address: 0.0.0.0

*** mac1 can't find mac1: No response from server
[mac1:~] peter%
Click to expand...

Found this little bit of info on nslookup on http://osxfaq.com

To clear up your confusion on the problems with 'nslookup', note that bind's resolver library in Mac OS X uses 'lookupd' to resolve names (the library sends requests to lookupd; lookupd uses various resources, depending on configuration, including DNS and netinfo).

Thus the need for '/etc/resolv.conf' is minimal on a Mac OS X system. However, 'nslookup' does use it. Instead of using the resolver library, 'nslookup' crafts its own packets to talk with DNS servers. It will use /etc/resolv.conf for configuration info, if present, but as you observe, you can also give it that information on the command line, or interactively.

The right behavior for 'nslookup' on Mac OS X/Darwin is to look in netinfo for this information, if it's not present on the file system.

To make matters a bit more interesting, '/etc/resolv.conf' is now, usually, a symbolic link to '/var/run/resolv.conf'. The latter is created, or not, depending on PPP and a Darwin component called configd. If PPP is active, the DNS info is written to the latter file; and removed when PPP goes inaactive.

Hope this helps bring more confusion to your life :-}

Regards,

Justin

Justin C. Walker, Curmudgeon-At-Large *
Institute for General Semantics |
Manager, CoreOS Networking | Men are from Earth.
Apple Computer, Inc. | Women are from Earth.
2 Infinite Loop | Deal with it.
Cupertino, CA 95014 |
*---------------------------------------*-------------------------------*
Click to expand...
 
NetInfo comes from Next. No other Unix that I know of uses it, and I personally find configuration files in /etc much easier to use than the new NetInfo OS X uses are faced with.

DiskBreaker
 
[/i]posted by DiskBreaker [/i]
NetInfo comes from Next. No other Unix that I know of uses it, and I personally find configuration files in /etc much easier to use than the new NetInfo OS X uses are faced with.

DiskBreaker [/QUOTE]

90% of mac users will find the /etc/ file chaos even more confusing/difficult/irrelevant. Anyway you can use traditional /etc/ file structures using niutil and nidump.

I have only one gripe about NetInfo, it doesn't have read permissions.
 
There are several entries for netinfo in the man pages. The default search order, though, finds the "programming" information before the "system administration" information. Try doing "man 5 netinfo" to see if it has the kind of documentation you are looking for...
 
Originally posted by Goedtkindt
The URL
http://www.daemonnews.org/200011/osx-daemon.html

explains netinfo only vaguely, it states that netinfo can find missing information from a NIS database, but fails to explain how to set this up... For this to happen, does one need to check the "connect to parent netinfo server"
check-box in the network control pannel or not ?
I agree with the URL that "information on netinfo is sparce and outdated".

bedankt DJ :)
Click to expand...

The easiest way to work with NetInfo is to use /Applications/Utilities/NetInfo Manager. I agree that NetInfo is hard to find data on, but hopefully that will change in time. As far as integration with NIS, take a look at the man page for lookupd. This is the actual daemon that querries NetInfo on behalf of other processes (though they can be written to access that data directly, if necessary). It's pretty informative and describes how to configure the various 'agents' that lookupd supports (including NIS).

I hope that helps.
 
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