5.6. What next?

The Network Information Service provides an easy-to-manage general purpose distributed database system. When used in conjunction with a source code control system and local tools, it solves many problems with configuration file management by providing audit trails and a single point of administration. The single biggest advantage of NIS is that it adds consistency to a network. Getting all hosts to agree on usernames, uid and gid values, and hostnames and host addresses is a prerequisite for adding other distributed services such as NFS.

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