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Manual page for MAKEDBM(8)

makedbm - make a NIS ndbm file

SYNOPSIS

/usr/etc/yp/makedbm [ -b ] [ -l ] [ -s ] [ -i yp_input_file ] [ -o yp_output_name ]
[ -d yp_domain_name ] [ -m yp_master_name ] infile outfile

makedbm [ -u dbmfilename ]

DESCRIPTION

makedbm takes infile and converts it to a pair of files in ndbm.3 format, namely outfile.pag and outfile.dir. Each line of the input file is converted to a single dbm record. All characters up to the first TAB or SPACE form the key, and the rest of the line is the data. If a line ends with `\', then the data for that record is continued on to the next line. It is left for the clients of the Network Information Service (NIS) to interpret #; makedbm does not itself treat it as a comment character. infile can be `-', in which case the standard input is read.

makedbm is meant to be used in generating dbm files for the NIS service, and it generates a special entry with the key yp_last_modified, which is the date of infile (or the current time, if infile is `-').

OPTIONS

-b: Interdomain. Propagate a map to all servers using the interdomain name server named.8c
-l: Lowercase. Convert the keys of the given map to lower case, so that host name matches, for example, can work independent of upper or lower case distinctions.
-s: Secure map. Accept connections from secure NIS networks only.
-i yp_input_file: Create a special entry with the key yp_input_file.
-o yp_output_name: Create a special entry with the key yp_output_name.
-d yp_domain_name: Create a special entry with the key yp_domain_name.
-m yp_master_name: Create a special entry with the key yp_master_name. If no master host name is specified, yp_master_name will be set to the local host name.
-u dbmfilename: Undo a dbm file. That is, print out a dbm file one entry per line, with a single space separating keys from values.

EXAMPLE

It is easy to write shell scripts to convert standard files such as /etc/passwd to the key value form used by makedbm. For example:

#!/bin/awk -f
BEGIN { FS = ":"; OFS = "\t"; }
{ print $1, $0 }

takes the /etc/passwd file and converts it to a form that can be read by makedbm to make the NIS file passwd.byname. That is, the key is a username, and the value is the remaining line in the /etc/passwd file.

NOTES

The Network Information Service (NIS) was formerly known as Sun Yellow Pages (YP). The functionality of the two remains the same; only the name has changed.