Configuring the Network File System (NFS)

About managing user accounts

Within a network environment, each user and group must have a unique identification number across the entire network, rather than just on the home machine. The user ID (UID) should be a number unique to the user. A system knows the user by the UID associated with the login name; therefore, a login name must have the same UID in all password files of machines that are networked in a local domain.

CAUTION: Failure to keep UIDs unique prevents users from moving files between directories on different machines, because the system responds as if the directories were owned by two different users. In addition, file ownership may become confused when an NFS server exports a directory to an NFS client whose password file contains users with UIDs matching those of different users on the NFS server.

If you wish to maintain user equivalence, each new user must be added to the proper password files for all machines on the system. If you are using NIS, also see ``Configuring the Network Information Service (NIS)''.