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What does the compat keyword mean in name service switch? /etc/nsswitch.conf

Dave M
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Codler
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1 Answers1

8

Compat is used to support the +/- features of passwdand group local files. Historically if you wanted to include information from a different source e.g. NIS, you could put an entry in your password/group file +username +@netgroup which would cause the information for username or netgroup to be read from NIS. Mostly a single + was put at the end of the file to indicate that the whole NIS map should be used.

With NSS this is no longer required as you can now just specify the data sources in /etc/nsswitch.conf e.g.

passwd: files nisplus nis
MadHatter
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user9517
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