nisping(1M) Maintenance Commands nisping(1M)
NAME
nisping - send ping to NIS+ servers
SYNOPSIS
/usr/lib/nis/nisping [ -uf ] [ -H hostname ]
[ -r | directory ]
/usr/lib/nis/nisping -C [ -a ] [ -H hostname ] [ directory ]
DESCRIPTION
In the first SYNOPSIS line, the nisping command sends a
``ping'' to all replicas of a NIS+ directory. Once a
replica receives a ping, it will check with the master
server for the directory to get updates. Prior to pinging
the replicas, this command attempts to determine the last
update "seen" by a replica and the last update logged by the
master. If these two timestamps are the same, the ping is
not sent. The -f (force) option will override this feature.
Under normal circumstances, NIS+ replica servers get the new
information from the master NIS+ server within a short time.
Therefore, there should not be any need to use nisping.
In the second SYNOPSIS line, the nisping -C command sends a
checkpoint request to the servers. If no directory is
specified, the home domain, as returned by nisdefaults(1),
is checkpointed. If all directories, served by a given
server, have to be checkpointed, then use the -a option.
On receiving a checkpoint request, the servers would commit
all the updates for the given directory from the table log
files to the database files. This command, if sent to the
master server, will also send updates to the replicas if
they are out of date. This option is needed because the
database log files for NIS+ are not automatically check-
pointed. nisping should be used at frequent intervals (such
as once a day) to checkpoint the NIS+ database log files.
This command can be added to the crontab(1) file. If the
database log files are not checkpointed, their sizes will
continue to grow.
OPTIONS
-a Checkpoint all directories on the server.
-C Send a request to checkpoint, rather than a
ping, to each server. The servers schedule
to commit all the transactions to stable
storage.
-H hostname Only the host hostname is sent the ping,
checked for an update time, or checkpointed.
-f Force a ping, even though the timestamps
indicate there is no reason to do so. This
option is useful for debugging.
-r This option can be used to update or get
status about the root object from the root
servers, especially when new root replicas
are added or deleted from the list.
If used without -u option, - r will send a
ping request to the servers serving the root
domain. When the replicas receive a ping,
they will update their root object if needed.
The -r option can be used with all other
options except with the -C option; the root
object need not be checkpointed.
-u Display the time of the last update; no
servers are sent a ping.
RETURN VALUES
-1 No servers were contacted, or the server
specified by the -H switch could not be con-
tacted.
0 Success.
1 Some, but not all, servers were successfully
contacted.
EXAMPLES
This example pings all replicas of the default domain:
example% nisping
Note that this example will not ping the the org_dir and
group_dir subdirectories within this domain.
This example pings the server example which is a replica of
the org_dir.foo.com. directory:
example% nisping -H example org_dir.foo.com.
This example checkpoints all servers of the org_dir.bar.com.
directory.
example% nisping -C org_dir.bar.com.
ENVIRONMENT
NIS_PATH If this variable is set, and the NIS+ direc-
tory name is not fully qualified, each
directory specified will be searched until
the directory is found.
SEE ALSO
crontab(1), nisdefaults(1), nislog(1M), nis_admin(3N), nis-
files(4)
NOTES
If the server specified by the -H option does not serve the
directory, then no ping is sent.
SunOS 5.4 Last change: 19 Feb 1993