Name Service Switch (file nsswitch.conf) : what is 'compat' for ?

[bcostacurta]

Hello,

in the file nsswitch.conf what means the value 'compat' ?
I checked the man pages but cannot find any definition or details about it.

Eg. in my nsswitch.conf :

passwd: compat
group: compat


Thanks.

Bye,
Bruno

[HROAdmin26]

Google: nsswitch.conf compat

[bcostacurta]

(Dear HROAdmin26 : thanks for this useless and waste of time respond.)

As previously introduced :

in /etc/nsswitch.conf :

passwd: compat
group: compat

what is the source of passwd and group ?
files or dns or ?

Bye.
Bruno

[HROAdmin26]

How do you get user and group information out of DNS? Do you have any clue what you are even asking?

Linux libc5 without NYS does not have the name service switch but does allow the user some policy control. In /etc/passwd you could have entries of the form +user or +@netgroup (include the specified user from the NIS passwd map), -user or -@netgroup (exclude the specified user), and + (include every user, except the excluded ones, from the NIS passwd map). Since most people only put a + at the end of /etc/passwd to include everything from NIS, the switch provides a faster alternative for this case (`passwd: files nis') which doesn't require the single + entry in /etc/passwd, /etc/group, and /etc/shadow. If this is not sufficient, the NSS `compat' service provides full +/- semantics. By default, the source is `nis', but this may be overriden by specifying `nisplus' as source for the pseudo-databases passwd_compat, group_compat and shadow_compat. This pseudo-databases are only available in GNU C Library.

[bcostacurta]

Of course 'ldap' and not 'dns'.
It's a typo error in my previous email.
Please note indeed that same type error is present in 'man nsswitch' under passwd_compat sample which introduces dns.

About my request, my LDAP server is setup and before make it realy living I want to understand if I can replace 'compat' by ie. 'files ldap' to test passwd queries between files and ldap. Or is 'compat' something equivalent to this ?

Dear HROAdmin26 do you have experiences and knowledges in IT and especially with nsswitch.conf and compat settings ?
I mean something more constructive and interesting than copy / paste from man pages or Google searches.
We're in a forum : it's a place for discussions and experiences exchanges.

Bye,
Bruno