[SunHELP] Naming Services...which to use???

[Dale Ghent]

On Fri, 11 Jan 2002, Robert Banniza wrote:

| Ok guys,
| Here's a loaded question. I'm working in a shop with several flavors of
| UNIX. These include AIX, Solaris, Tru64 and Linux. However, with the
| recent awareness of HIPAA and needing a central authentication
| mechanism, I'm wanting to use either LDAP, NIS or NIS+ with the ability
| to automount a user's home directory. With that said, what are you guys
| using out there in the field? I'm having a hard time deciding as:
|
| LDAP: not supported by all OSes in some form or fashion
| NIS: Supported by all but older technology and not the most secure
| NIS+: Again not supported by all OSes and a little tougher to maintain

I think LDAP is your best bet. Recent versions of all of the OSes you
mention provide support for it in some way (PAM, NS Switch, etc), so for
now and into the future (you're considering the future, right? :) LDAP
will probably be the easiest mechanism to get things to integrate with it.

Also, I'd say that maintaining an LDAP database is easier, along with
configuring slaves (replication) and such.

/dale