On Fri, Feb 16, 2007 at 12:08:59PM +0100, Gabor Gombas wrote: > On Fri, Feb 16, 2007 at 09:42:20AM +0000, Mark Brown wrote: > > Why do you say it is considered obsolete (beyond the whole "being NIS" > > thing)? It gives slightly more control than using the NSS module > > directly. > Because it uses NIS even if you are not aware of it thus wasting memory > in _every_ running process, This is a reason why one might prefer files over compat, not a reason why one would prefer compat over the NIS module. > it is a little slower than "passwd files > nis", and because very few people need the extra flexibility the > plus-adressing provides. I'd be interested to see if the difference there was actually benchmarkable - it would surprise me if it were. I'd expect it would be more likely that the hit from loading the compat module over files were noticable. > > It is also what is currently recommended by our NIS package. > That may very well be a remnant from the early-libc6 times when > preserving compatibility with libc5 and other Unices lacking nsswitch > was important. It's not just a hangover from older libcs - the additional functionality, the fact that it works with the default nsswitch.conf and the compatiblity with other Unixes are more important factors. This means that random documention people find with Google is likely to work and nobody familiar with the traditional way of doing things will be surprised. Given that it has benefits and I can't really see any substantial negatives to compat I don't see changing it. -- "You grabbed my hand and we fell into it, like a daydream - or a fever."
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