Description:

The Network Information Service (NIS) is a system which provides
network information (login names, passwords, home directories, group
information) to all of the machines on a network. NIS can enable users
to login on any machine on the network, as long as the machine has the
NIS client programs running and the user's password is recorded in the
NIS passwd database. NIS was formerly known as Sun Yellow Pages (YP).

This package's NIS implementation is based on FreeBSD's YP and is a
special port for glibc 2.x and libc versions 5.4.21 and later. This
package only provides the NIS client programs. In order to use the
clients, you'll need to already have an NIS server running on your
network. An NIS server is provided in the ypserv package.

Install the yp-tools package if you need NIS client programs for
machines on your network. You will also need to install the ypbind
package on every machine running NIS client programs. If you need an
NIS server, you'll need to install the ypserv package on one machine
on the network.