YPPUSH(8)

💖 YPPUSH(8) — the NIS Reference Manual glow-up 💖

okay bestie, sit down, grab a boba, because we're talking about yppush, and she's from the NIS Reference Manual era, so she's vintage but she WORKS. 🎀

---

✨ NAME ✨

yppush — force propagation of changed NIS databases. she's the push notification system of the 90s and honestly? iconic. 👑

---

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

/usr/sbin/yppush [-d domain] [-t timeout] [--parallel # | --port port]
                 [-h host] [-v] mapname...

---

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

okay so. yppush copies updated NIS databases (or maps, if we're being cute about it) from the master NIS server over to the slave servers inside a NIS domain. it's normally run only on the NIS master by /var/yp/Makefile after the master databases get changed. and like, heads up: /var/yp/Makefile does not invoke yppush by default — you literally have to comment out the NOPUSH=true line. she doesn't just show up uninvited, she waits for her moment. 🙈

first thing yppush does is construct a list of NIS slave servers by reading the NIS map ypservers within the domain. a destination host (or a whole list of hosts, using multiple -h commands) can also be specified on the command line. a "transfer map" request gets sent to the NIS server at each slave, along with all the info the transfer agent ypxfr(8) needs to callback to yppush, which may print the result to stderr. messages also get printed when a transfer is just not possible — for instance, when the request message is undeliverable. it's giving "left on read." 😭

and if you wanna specify a port number or use any other yppush options, you can edit /var/yp/Makefile directly. yes, actually. go in there. she said DIY. ✂️

---

🌈 OPTIONS 🌈

• -d domain — specify a particular domain. by default the NIS domain of the local host system is used. and if the local host's domain name isn't set? bestie, you must specify the domain name with this flag. no domain, no service. 💀
• -t timeout — the timeout flag specifies a timeout value in seconds. this timeout controls how long yppush will wait for a response from a slave server before sending a map transfer request to the next slave server in the list. by default, yppush waits 90 seconds. and for big maps? that is not long enough. fr fr. ⏳
• --parallel #, -p # — yppush normally performs transfers serially, meaning it sends a map transfer request to one slave server, then waits for it to respond before sending the next request to the next slave server. in environments with many slaves, it's way more efficient to initiate several map transfers at once so they can happen in parallel. but — and this is the important part — it is not possible to run in parallel and assign a fixed port with the --port flag. pick a lane, queen. 🚦
• --port port — specify a port for yppush to listen on. by default, yppush will ask portmap(8) to assign it a random port number. and again: it is not possible to assign a port with this option and run in parallel with the --parallel or -p flag. same energy, opposite direction. 🎯
• -h host — the host flag can be used to transfer a map to a user-specified machine or group of machines instead of the list of servers contained in the ypservers map. you can specify a whole list of hosts by using multiple instances of the -h flag. stack 'em. 🫶
• -v — verbose mode! this causes yppush to print debugging messages as it runs. and bestie, note this: specifying this flag twice makes yppush even more verbose. double the tea, double the chaos. 🍓

---

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

• domainname(1)
• ypserv(8)
• ypxfr(8)

---

⭐ BUGS ⭐

the mechanism for transferring NIS maps in NIS v1 is different than that in NIS version 2. this version of yppush has support for transferring maps to NIS v2 systems only. so if you're on v1, she cannot help you, and that's just the truth. 😔

---

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Thorsten Kukuk <kukuk@linux-nis.org>

---

and that's the whole page, no notes 💜 this diva was brought to you by the NIS Reference Manual, dated 12/31/2020, filed under YPPUSH(8) — go forth and propagate, bestie. mwah. 💅✨