Chapter 38. Managing Unix and Linux Users

SOME OF THE MAIN TOPICS IN THIS CHAPTER ARE

User Administration 704

Network Information Service (NIS) 713

Common Login Problems 719

Unix is not generally considered an office desktop operating system. The Windows OS family has pretty much taken over the desktop, along with other minor players such as Apple's Macintosh operating system and, to some degree, Linux. However, Unix is a dominant player in the server market, and many large networks are made up of a collection of Unix servers, X-Window Systems clients, and, usually, some Windows clients. Unix becomes much more prevalent when you get past the office desktop environment and into the workstation or server environment. Establishing a network connection or an interactive session on a Unix server requires, in most cases, that the user provide some form of authentication (that is, username and password).

This chapter covers the files typically used for user authentication purposes on Unix and Linux systems and some of the problems commonly associated with the logon process.

In addition, you'll learn a bit about Network Information Service (NIS). This set of client/server programs can be used to manage many important files on multiple computers, keeping all computers within an NIS domain in sync. These files include those used for user management, as well as others, depending on the implementation, such as network configuration files. Although it is impossible to cover all the various things you can do with NIS in only one chapter, you'll get a good overview of the kinds of tasks associated with setting up and managing multiple servers using NIS.