The above example file mentions four different services: files,
db, nis, and nisplus. This does not mean these
services are available on all sites and it does also not mean these are
all the services which will ever be available.
In fact, these names are simply strings which the NSS code uses to find
the implicitly addressed functions. The internal interface will be
described later. Visible to the user are the modules which implement an
individual service.
Assume the service name shall be used for a lookup. The code for
this service is implemented in a module called libnss_name.
On a system supporting shared libraries this is in fact a shared library
with the name (for example) libnss_name.so.2. The number
at the end is the currently used version of the interface which will not
change frequently. Normally the user should not have to be cognizant of
these files since they should be placed in a directory where they are
found automatically. Only the names of all available services are
important.
Published under the terms of the GNU General Public License