PF-NFS Yellow Pages (YP)
This lets each PC ask servers on the net to look up the
Internet address of every host referenced in net operations -- even
the PC's own. Not only does this eliminate keeping duplicate (and
possibly obsolete) copies of the database on each PC, it makes
available a much larger pool of addresses than could reasonably be
kept on a PC. Internet addresses are immediately available for
every Internet host that ICS's network can reach.
Yellow Pages service is often called "YP", and the server that
supplies it, the "YP server".
NOTE: since PC-NFS was released, the telephone company have
asserted copyright over the term "Yellow Pages". Sun therefore now
calls this lookup system NIS ("Network Information Server?"). Obviously,
though, our PC-NFS software must continue to refer to "Yellow Pages",
at least until a newer version is obtained.
The PC-NFS programs ypmatch and ypcat let the user
interrogate Yellow Pages directly.