> From: David Mandala > Sorry my bad explanation you keep the user > accounts on the NIS server > and normally keep the root and systems accounts > on each server and > desktop. That way if the NIS system is down or > networking is down the > admins can get on the local system. There are > ways to cache the NIS data > but not normally done. > > You could put all of the data on the NIS server > but that is normally not > done since if the cache expired and the NIS > server was not able to be > reached you would be completely unable to > access the machines. OK, I see how that would work for desktops within the company's walls, but if you don't cache the user account data on the local machine, then when a user has their laptop out "on the road", they wouldn't be able to fire it up, including meaning they then couldn't dial in to the company network. Or would they use yet another (local) account to log in locally first? Similarly, desktop users wouldn't be able to do ANYTHING on their machines if a NIS server was unavailable. That all correct? What solutions to these issues exist in the *nix world? Does LDAP offer a way out? Thanks! . __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos & More http://faith.yahoo.com