
``nis`` --- Interface to Sun's NIS (Yellow Pages)
*************************************************

*Platforms: *Unix

The ``nis`` module gives a thin wrapper around the NIS library, useful
for central administration of several hosts.

Because NIS exists only on Unix systems, this module is only available
for Unix.

The ``nis`` module defines the following functions:

nis.match(key, mapname[, domain=default_domain])

   Return the match for *key* in map *mapname*, or raise an error
   (``nis.error``) if there is none. Both should be strings, *key* is
   8-bit clean. Return value is an arbitrary array of bytes (may
   contain ``NULL`` and other joys).

   Note that *mapname* is first checked if it is an alias to another
   name.

   The *domain* argument allows to override the NIS domain used for
   the lookup. If unspecified, lookup is in the default NIS domain.

nis.cat(mapname[, domain=default_domain])

   Return a dictionary mapping *key* to *value* such that ``match(key,
   mapname)==value``. Note that both keys and values of the dictionary
   are arbitrary arrays of bytes.

   Note that *mapname* is first checked if it is an alias to another
   name.

   The *domain* argument allows to override the NIS domain used for
   the lookup. If unspecified, lookup is in the default NIS domain.

nis.maps([domain=default_domain])

   Return a list of all valid maps.

   The *domain* argument allows to override the NIS domain used for
   the lookup. If unspecified, lookup is in the default NIS domain.

nis.get_default_domain()

   Return the system default NIS domain.

The ``nis`` module defines the following exception:

exception exception nis.error

   An error raised when a NIS function returns an error code.
