lookupd(8)

NAME
lookupd - directory services information daemon

SYNOPSIS
lookupd

lookupd -d

lookupd -D portname

lookupd -f category key value

lookupd -q category [ [ -a key [value ...]] ...]

lookupd -configuration

lookupd -flushcache

lookupd -statistics

DESCRIPTION
The lookupd daemon acts as an information broker and cache. It is called by various routines in the System framework to find information about user accounts, groups, printers, e-mail aliases and distribution lists, computer names, Internet addresses, and several other kinds of information.

lookupd keeps a cache of recently located items to improve system performance. It also implements a search strategy used to find information from the many information sources that are potentially available to a computer. These include the Domain Name System (DNS), Sun Microsystem's Network Information Services (NIS), Apple's NetInfo system, and a set of files found in the /etc directory. X.500-style databases that implement the schema described in RFC 2307 may be accessed using the LDAP protocol.

lookupd resets in response to a SIGHUP signal. This mechanism forces it to reinitialize its configuration options and empty the cache. A complete restart may be invoked by sending a SIGUSR1 signal. Note that lookupd does not restart correctly if killed and restarted from the command line.

lookupd writes its process ID number in the file /var/run/lookupd.pid.

LOOKUP STRATEGY
Internally, lookupd uses a set of software “agents” to get information. There are agents for NetInfo, NIS, DNS, the files in /etc (also known as the “Flat Files” ), an LDAP agent, and an agent which manages the internal cache. There is also a special agent (the NILAgent) which returns negative entries.

When lookupd searches for information about an item, it queries agents in a specific order until the item is found or until all sources of information have been consulted without finding the desired item. By default, lookupd first queries its cache agent, and then NetInfo. If the item is a host or network, lookupd will query the cache, then the DNS agent, and NetInfo last. In some cases, lookupd creates lists of all the information available about some sort of entity. For example, all printers or all NFS mounts. In these cases lookupd queries each agent in turn and concatenates all retrieved information into a single list.

The lookup order is configurable. For example, you might specify that lookupd queries its internal cache, then NetInfo, then the Flat Files, then NIS. You may also change the lookup order for a particular category of item. The known categories are users, groups, hosts, networks, services, protocols, rpcs, mounts, printers, bootparams, bootp, aliases, and netgroups. You can set the lookup order (and other configuration options) for all categories, and override them for individual categories. Details on configuring lookupd are found in the CONFIGURATION section below.

Some agents may have their own configuration options. Details on configuring individual agents are found in the AGENTS section below.

CACHE
There are caches for all categories of lookups. The caches are unlimited in capacity (although you can set a maximum size, see below). The default lookup order starts with the cache agent for each lookup category. Caching may be disabled for all categories or for specific categories by removing the cache agent from the lookup order.

  CACHE VALIDATION
lookupd validates items retrieved from cache before returning them. If an entry is invalid, a fresh copy is fetched to replace the stale one in cache. In many cases it is possible for lookupd to quickly determine that a cached entry is still valid; for example by checking a time stamp or a database sequence number. When cache validation is enabled, performance is enhanced because many items can be stored in cache, while at the same time clients can be certain that any data they get from lookupd is as up-to-date as possible. If cache validation is disabled, items are returned from cache without any checks. In this case it is possible that the information is out-of-date. You can place limits on how stale an item might be by setting the cache TimeToLive (see below).

You can also get the best of both worlds by having cache validation enabled and adjusting the ValidationLatency. If an agent has just fetched a database version number or read a time stamp in order to validate one item in the cache, then it can use that value for a few seconds to validate other entries in the cache with only a small risk that those entries have become out-of date. Setting ValidationLatency to 0 seconds causes validation on every fetch from cache. Setting the value to a larger number means that lookupd will avoid re-checking time stamps, sequence numbers, version numbers or other validation indicators for the indicated number of seconds. This allows you to say, for example, that you are willing to let the cache return an item that might be no more than a few seconds out-of-date in order to reduce network traffic. The default value for ValidationLatency is 15 seconds.

Validation is enabled by default, but may be disabled for all categories, or for specific categories. For example, since computer names and addresses very rarely change, you might want to turn off cache validation for the host cache to save time and reduce network traffic. This is especially useful on slow network lines. If network access is fast, cache validation is inexpensive, and ensures that all data is up-to-date.

The cache validation strategy in the NetInfo, NIS, and Flat File agents makes validation as fast and inexpensive as possible. At present, there is no cache validation for DNS. That means that objects originally obtained from DNS will only be available from the cache if validation is disabled for hosts.

The NILAgent returns a negative record for any lookup. This stops further search for an item. The NILAgent should always appear last in any LookupOrder specification (see below). The value of these negative records is that they will be added to the cache (if caching is enabled). If a lookup for a particular item fails (after a long, slow search of all available information sources), then subsequent lookups for the same item will fetch the negative record from the cache, thus avoiding another long search. Like all other cached records, negative records are validated. By default, negative records are valid for 60 seconds. You can override the default by setting the TimeToLive option in the NILAgent's configuration. See the AGENT section below.

When an object is placed in a cache, it is given a time to live. After that time has expired, it will be removed from the cache. The default is 12 hours. Making things expire more quickly will cause the cache to stay smaller, but will result in more network traffic. Whenever an object is validated, it's time to live is reset. Agents may over-ride the default time-to-live value. For example, the DNS agent uses the time-to-live value returned by a DNS server for a host entry.

CONFIGURATION
Configuration parameters may be placed in a set of directories in NetInfo, or in a set of files in the local file system. These parameters will override default settings. There may be one configuration directory in NetInfo or one file for each agent, and one NetInfo directory or file for each lookup category. There may also be a global configuration directory or file. Additionally, each agent may have category-specific configuration.

lookupd searches for configuration in NetInfo first, starting at the local domain and climbing to the root domain. If that search fails, lookupd checks for a configuration file in the file system.

The configuration source may be specified on the command line as a startup option. In this case, will not search for its configuration. The configuration source may be specified using one of the following command-line options:

-c default
-c file path
-c netinfo domain path

  NETINFO-BASED CONFIGURATION
Configuration directories in NetInfo must be placed in a subtree beginning at the /locations/lookupd directory. /locations/lookupd may contain global settings, stored as values for various keys. Configuration options for specific categories reside in the directories:

/locations/lookupd/users
/locations/lookupd/groups
/locations/lookupd/hosts
/locations/lookupd/networks
/locations/lookupd/services
/locations/lookupd/protocols
/locations/lookupd/rpcs
/locations/lookupd/mounts
/locations/lookupd/printers
/locations/lookupd/bootparams
/locations/lookupd/bootp
/locations/lookupd/aliases
/locations/lookupd/netgroups

There may also be configuration directories for each agent. These must be subdirectories of the /locations/lookupd/agents directory:

/locations/lookupd/agents/CacheAgent
/locations/lookupd/agents/DNSAgent
/locations/lookupd/agents/FFAgent
/locations/lookupd/agents/LDAPAgent
/locations/lookupd/agents/NIAgent
/locations/lookupd/agents/NILAgent
/locations/lookupd/agents/YPAgent

Each of these agent-specific directories may have category specific subdirectories, for example:

/locations/locations/agents/NIAgent/printers
/locations/locations/agents/NIAgent/hosts
...

  FILE-BASED CONFIGURATION
Configuration settings for lookup may be placed in files under the directory /etc/lookupd. The layout of these files generally follows the layout scheme used in NetInfo, except that a file named “global” is used to store global settings for lookupd and for individual agents.

/etc/lookupd/global
/etc/lookupd/users
/etc/lookupd/groups
/etc/lookupd/hosts
/etc/lookupd/networks
/etc/lookupd/services
/etc/lookupd/protocols
/etc/lookupd/rpcs
/etc/lookupd/mounts
/etc/lookupd/printers
/etc/lookupd/bootparams
/etc/lookupd/bootp
/etc/lookupd/aliases
/etc/lookupd/netgroups
/etc/lookupd/agents
/etc/lookupd/agents/CacheAgent/global
/etc/lookupd/agents/DNSAgent/global
/etc/lookupd/agents/FFAgent/global
/etc/lookupd/agents/LDAPAgent/global
/etc/lookupd/agents/NIAgent/global
/etc/lookupd/agents/NILAgent/global
/etc/lookupd/agents/YPAgent/global

Category-specific configuration files may appear in an agent's subdirectory. For example, category-specific files for NIAgent are:

/etc/lookupd/agents/NIAgent/global
/etc/lookupd/agents/NIAgent/users
/etc/lookupd/agents/NIAgent/groups
/etc/lookupd/agents/NIAgent/hosts
/etc/lookupd/agents/NIAgent/networks
/etc/lookupd/agents/NIAgent/services
/etc/lookupd/agents/NIAgent/protocols
/etc/lookupd/agents/NIAgent/rpcs
/etc/lookupd/agents/NIAgent/mounts
/etc/lookupd/agents/NIAgent/printers
/etc/lookupd/agents/NIAgent/bootparams
/etc/lookupd/agents/NIAgent/bootp
/etc/lookupd/agents/NIAgent/aliases
/etc/lookupd/agents/NIAgent/netgroups

Note that only some agents make use of category-specific configurations. They are described in the AGENTS section below.

  CONFIGURATION KEYS
Configuration directories in NetInfo have property keys and values as specified below. If configuration parameters are stored in a file, each line of the file will be of the form:

    key value [value ...]

Lines beginning with “#” are treated as comments.

Keys and permissible values for the main (global) lookupd configuration directory or file are shown in the following table. keys and values that apply to specific agents are described in the AGENTS section.

LogFile
Name of a log file that contains a copy of all messages sent to syslog. There is no default (i.e. no log file is kept).

LogPriority
Sets the maximum priority that will be logged. Note that syslog's highest priority (LOG_EMERG) is 0, with priority 8 being the lowest priority (LOG_DEBUG). The default is LOG_NOTICE, meaning that only messages of LOG_NOTICE or higher priority will be logged. This value can also be set on the command line using the -l priority option.

MaxThreads
Maximum number of threads in the query dispatcher. The default is16. Under very heavy load, only 5 or 6 threads are used, so 16 is more than enough.

MaxIdleThreads
When a thread finishes servicing a query, it will usually go back to the message queue to wait for another query. This setting limits the maximum number of idle threads waiting on the queue. If a thread finishes servicing a query and MaxIdleThreads are already waiting on the queue, the thread will exit. The default value is 16.

MaxIdleServers
The dispatcher uses a server object to actually answer a client lookup. One server is required for each active thread. The dispatcher keeps a pool of servers so that they can be re-used. This setting limits the maximum number of servers in the pool, waiting for a query to answer. The default value is 16.

ValidateCache
This boolean value determines whether cache validation is enabled for all cache categories. The default is YES. Use NO to disable validation. The setting of this value may be over-ridden for specific cache categories (see below).

ValidationLatency
If Cache validation is enabled, this integer value specifies the number of seconds that may elapse between successive validation checks for a particular agent. The default is 15 seconds. This value applies to specific agents rather than to the cache. The setting of this value may be over-ridden for specific agents (see below).

CacheCapacity
Maximum number of objects in the cache for each category (e.g. this many users, this many hosts, ...). Least-recently-used objects are removed when space is required. By default, there is no limit to the cache size.

TimeToLive
Time to live (measured in seconds) in cache. The default is 43200 seconds (12 hours). This is the default mechanism used to limit the growth of the cache.

LookupOrder
Sets the lookup order for all categories, although you may override this for specific categories. This key takes multiple values. The default for all categories except host and network lookups is CacheAgent then NIAgent. For hosts and networks, the default lookup order is CacheAgent, DNSAgent, then NIAgent. Details about specifying agents in a lookup order may be found in the AGENTS section.

Timeout
Time to wait for a response from a server. The default value is 30 seconds. Note that this timeout applies individually to all agents. It is not a global timeout for any lookupd query. The total time that might be taken for a single query to lookupd depends on how many agents are involved in the lookup order for that category of item.

Options that can be set per lookup category are ValidateCache, CacheCapacity, TimeToLive, and LookupOrder.

AGENTS
As described above, agents are specified as values of a LookupOrder configuration key. As a convenience, agent names may be shortened by omitting the trailing string “Agent” from their name. Thus, for example, DNS may be used in place of DNSAgent.

An optional starting argument may be provided to an agent following a colon character. For example, to use a Flat File agent that reads from files in the directory /var/db/files rather than from files in /etc, you could specify:

    FF:/var/db/files

This mechanism allows you to specify several agents of the same type, each with a different starting argument. For example, several Flat File agents reading from different directories, or several DNS agents using different domains. Starting options are described for each agent in the sections below.

  CacheAgent
The operation and configuration of the cache agent are described in detail in the sections above. The configuration options for the Cache agent are ValidateCache, CacheCapacity, and TimeToLive. These options may be set globally and/or for specific categories. Options set for a specific category will over-ride the global setting.

Note that CacheAgent should always appear first in a LookupOrder specification to allow lookupd to find cached entries before searching other information services.

CacheAgent does not support a startup argument (as described at the start of this section).

  NIAgent
NIAgent is the NetInfo client. It supports the Timeout, ConnectTimeout, ValidationLatency and DomainOrder options.

The Timeout option specifies a NetInfo read timeout in seconds. This timeout is applied to all NetInfo lookups.

ConnectTimeout controls timeouts on initial NetInfo connections done at startup time, and applies to all domains other than the local domain. The default value is 300 seconds. A zero value indicates an unlimitied timeout.

ValidationLatency is described above in the section. NIAgent validates cached entries by checking the NetInfo server's database checksum. The NetInfo checksum changes whenever the database changes. Thus, any time a NetInfo domain is updated, all cached entries from that domain will be invalidated.

The DomainOrder option was the original mechanism implemented to allow you to specify a list of NetInfo domains (or specific NetInfo servers) that should be queried for information. A search order may now be specified by using the startup argument (see below). However, the DomainOrder option is still supported for backward compatability.

By default, the NetInfo agent starts with a computer's local domain, then climbs the NetInfo hierarchy until reaching the root domain. In very rare cases, you might find that you can solve a difficult configuration problem by altering the default lookup order. Using this option can make your information systems configuration very confusing and spaghetti-like, so exercise great caution in its use!

The domain search order may be set globally (for all categories of lookups), and/or for specific categories. A domain order for a specific category will over-ride the global order for for lookups of that type (e.g. for user lookups).

The DomainOrder option may have multiple values. Each value specifies a domain or a specific NetInfo server. Domain names may be absolute paths starting at the root domain (e.g. /sales, /sol/jupiter), or a path relative to the local domain (e.g. ../zippy, ../../marketing). A “”. stands for the local domain. You may also specify a domain relative to a remote computer by using a value of the form

    nidomain:path@address
or
    path@address

For example, If you used the value

    nidomain:/central@192.42.172.1

NIAgent would connect to the computer with Internet address 192.42.172.1 and locate the domain named /central relative to that computer.

You can also include values of the form

    niserver:tag@address
or
    tag@address

to connect to a specific NetInfo server. For example,

    niserver:network@192.42.172.5

would contact the server for the database tagged network at the given address.

You may set the DomainOrder for a particular lookup category by creating a category-specific configuration directory (for NetInfo-based configurations) or file (for file-based configurations).

A LookupOrder may specify one or more NIAgents, each with a startup argument. The startup argument for NIAgent is a comma separated list of domain or server specifications. This includes the forms supported for the DomainOrder configuration key (see above), and may also include the string “...” which specifies that NIAgent should include all domains from the previous one specified in the list up to the root domain of that NetInfo hierarchy.

As it is the case with the DomainOrder list, you should use this facility with great care, for you can easily make the search order very confusing.

Some LookupOrder examples may help clarify the NIAgent startup argument.

NI:.,extra@10.0.0.17
    Local domain, then “extra” at 10.0.0.17;
NI:network@192.42.172.1,...
    Start with “network” at the specified address, then climb from that domain to the root domain.

  YPAgent
The YPAgent is the NIS client. The NIS domain name must be set before lookupd starts, or this agent will not be able to connect to a server (in which case it does nothing). The NIS domain name is usually set during system startup using the value of the NISDOMAIN variable in the file /etc/hostconfig. For example:

    NISDOMAIN=quinta

YPAgent supports the Timeout and ValidationLatency configuration options. YPAgent validates entries by checking the map order numbers.

Note that lookupd has separate agents for the Flat Files (see FFAgent below) and NIS. NIS and the files are viewed as independent information systems. You may use either agent or both in any order.

YPAgent reads the following maps. Note that some of these maps are extensions to the standard set of maps created by most YP servers.

ethers.byaddr
    Host names keyed by Ethernet address
bootptab.byaddr
    Bootp data keyed by Ethernet address
mail.aliases
    E-mail aliases and distribution lists
passwd.byname
    Users
passwd.byuid
    Users
group.byname
    Groups
group.bygid
    Groups
hosts.byname
    Hosts
hosts.byaddr
    Hosts
networks.byname
    Networks
networks.byaddr
    Networks
services.byname
    TCP/IP service ports and protocols
protocol.byname
    IP Protocols
protocol.bynumber
    IP Protocols
rpc.byname
    ONC RPC programs
rpc.bynumber
    ONC RPC programs
mounts.byname
    Mounts (fstab entries) keyed by name (fspec)
printcap.byname
    Printers (printcap entries) keyed by name
bootparams.byname
    Bootparams entries keyed by name
bootp.byip
    Bootp entries keyed by IP address
netgroup
    Netgroups

YPAgent does not support a startup argument.

  LDAPAgent
Records retrieved by the LDAP agent must have their information organized following the schema described by RFC 2307. In addition to ValidationLatency, LDAPAgent supports the following configuration options:

host
    Server name
port
    Server's TCP port
suffix
    Distinguished name to use as a search base
binddn
    Distinguished name for binding to server
    Default is to bind anonymously
bindpw
    Credentials to use in binding to the server
timelimit
    Maximum number of seconds for a query
    Default is no limit
scope
    Search scope Ð may be sub, one, or base
    Default is sub
deref
    Control for alias dereferencing ÐÊmay be
    never, find, search, or always
    Default is never

The LDAPAgent also recognizes the Timeout option, and will use its value if no timelimit option is provided.

LDAPAgent does not support a startup argument.

  DNSAgent
DNSAgent is the DNS client. Since DNS does not have a fast mechanism that would allow for validation of cached entries, the agent does not support cache validation. DNSAgent is only used for host name/address and network name/address lookups.

The DNSAgent supports the Timeout option. This sets the total timeout for a query. Note that a query is sent to a server, and if no reply is received, the query is re-tried a certain number of times, set by the value of the Retries option. If no reply is received from that server, then the query is sent to the next server in the list of known servers. The DNSAgent computes a per-server timeout from the total timeout, dividing by the number of servers and the number of tries per server.

Normally, DNSAgent determines the DNS domain name by reading the file /etc/resolv.conf. If that file does not exist, DNSAgent searches NetInfo for a directory named /locations/resolver, which should have the domain name specified as the value of the “domain” property. IP addresses of name servers should be specified as values of the “nameserver” property. Additional properties that may be specified in /etc/resolv.conf may also be specified in /locations/resolver, using the same keys and values as those used in the file.

If the Domain option is given in DNSAgent's configuration, its value will be used for the DNS domain name. Use of this option should be limited to special situations, as this mechanism is not supported by other DNS utilities such as the nslookup command.

By default, DNSAgent does not support queries that fetch a list of all entries, i.e. the “allHosts” query that supports the “gethostent()” API in the System framework. Setting the AllHostsEnabled option to “YES” will enable support for fetching a list of all hosts from DNS. The DNSAgent implements this using a zone transfer call. Use of this setting should be limited to special situations, since the call is very time consuming for the DNS server, and the resulting list will use large amounts of memory.

DNSAgent supports a domain name as an optional startup argument. For example:

    DNS:example.net
or
    DNS:local

This allows you to configure lookupd to be a client of several different DNS domains. Each domain named as an optional startup argument to DNSAgent must be defined in NetInfo. In the case of the example “example.net” there must be a NetInfo directory with the path “/domains/example.net.” The directory should have the same format as the “/locations/resolver” directory, as described above.

  FFAgent
The FFAgent reads the “Flat Files” in your computer's /etc directory. Specifically, it reads the files:

/etc/master.passwd
    Users (BSD 4.4 systems)
/etc/passwd
    Users (BSD 4.3 systems)
/etc/group
    Groups
/etc/hosts
    Computer names and addresses
/etc/networks
    Network names and addresses
/etc/services
    TCP/IP service ports and protocols
/etc/protocols
    IP protocol names and numbers
/etc/rpcs
    ONC RPC servers
/etc/fstab
    NFS mounts
/etc/printcap
    Printers
/etc/bootparams
    Bootparams settings
/etc/bootp
    Bootp settings
/etc/aliases
    E-mail aliases and distribution lists
/etc/netgroup
    Netgroups

FFAgent supports a directory path as an optional startup argument, which is used in place of /etc.

  NILAgent
The NILAgent always returns a result for a query, so it stops any search. However, it returns a negative record, which carries the meaning that the item requested does not exist. The use of negative entries in a cache is controversial, so lookupd does not include the NILAgent in its default lookup order. However, adding NILAgent at the end of the LookupOrder can result in significant performance improvements in some cases. If there are many network information sources being searched it can take a long time for lookupd to check them all when you ask for something that doesn't exist. By including NILAgent at the end of the lookup order, lookup will cache a negative record. The next time lookupd gets a request for the same item, it will find the negative record in the cache, and avoid a long and useless search.

It is always possible that lookupd may fail to find an item (and cache a negative record created by NILAgent) just before someone adds that item to one of your information systems. In that case the negative record will be incorrect, and should be removed from cache. Unfortunately, there's no way for lookupd to know that without doing another potentially expensive search. As a compromise, negative records only remain in the cache for a short time. The NILAgent assigns all negative records a time-to-live value of 60 seconds. You may change this by setting the TimeToLive option for the NILAgent.

NILAgent does not support a startup argument.

CONFIGURATION EXAMPLES
Here's a sample configuration as it might appear in the output of the “nidump” utility program.

    # nidump -r /locations/lookupd

    name = lookupd;
    LogFile = /var/log/lookupd.log;
    LookupOrder = (CacheAgent, NIAgent);
    CHILDREN = ({
    	name = users;
    	LookupOrder = (CacheAgent, NIAgent, LDAPAgent, FFAgent);
    }, {
    	name = hosts;
    	LookupOrder = (CacheAgent, NIAgent, DNSAgent, NILAgent);
    	ValidateCache = NO;
    }, {
    	name = netgroups;
    	LookupOrder = (CacheAgent, NIAgent, YPAgent);
    }, {
    	name = agents;
    	CHILDREN = ({
    		name = NIAgent;
    		ValidationLatency = 60;
    	}, {
    		name = NILAgent;
    		TimeToLive = 120;
    	}, {
    		name = LDAPAgent;
    		host = myservername;
    		deref = always;
    		scope = sub;
    		suffix = "DC=base,DC=mydomain,DC=com";
    		timelimit = 60;
    	});
    });

PERFORMANCE TUNING AND TROUBLESHOOTING
Simple queries can be sent to lookupd from the command line using:

lookupd -q category [ [ -a key [value ...]] ...]

The category may be user, group, host, network, service, protocol, rpc, mount, printer, bootparam, bootp, alias, or netgroup. The call will search for an item of the specified category having the given value(s) for the specified key(s). If no key or value options are specified, the call will return a list of all items of the specified category. If a key is specified with no value arguments, the call will only return items that have the specified key, regardless of its values.

Statistics from lookupd can be obtained using:

lookupd -statistics

This will print version and build information, as well as a summary of calls and time useage. Statistics are given for each information system, for each query, and for each qury within each information system. For example:

    Cache: 1676 1153 24285
    Cache all group: 3 0 18
    Cache all mount: 2 0 850
    Cache group gid: 434 391 22
    Cache group name: 12 10 342
    Cache host ip_address: 5 3 0
    Cache host name: 129 52 0
     ...

    netgroup name: 1 1 6867
    network address: 4 4 3565
    service name: 85 85 3964
    total: 1676 1676 212371
    user name: 74 74 11641
    user number: 3 3 773
    user uid: 760 760 45271

The first number printed in each line is the total number of calls. The second is the number of calls answered successfully. The third is the total time (in milliseconds) used for that item. Note that the time required for cache validation is included in the statistics for calls to the cache.

The command:

lookupd -flushcache

causes lookupd to empty the cache.

lookupd may be run in an interactive mode useful for testing and troubleshooting configuration problems. When you use the interactive mode, you start a second copy of the lookupd program from a command line with a -d option:

    mycomputer> lookupd -d
    lookupd version 123
    Enter command name, "help", or "quit" to exit
    >

This second copy of lookupd runs independently of the system's “main” lookupd and does not provide information to other programs running on your system. This allows you to try queries and test configuration options without disturbing normal operations. The second copy of lookupd will attempt to read its configuration options from a NetInfo directory named /locations/lookupd_debug (NetInfo) or /etc/lookupd_debug (files). If they don't exist, it will try /locations/lookupd or /etc/lookupd.

The interactive mode command line supports escape completion for commands, so you can type a character or two then press the Escape key. lookupd will complete as much of the command as it can (sometimes there are several command that start with the same characters). To see all possible completions, press Control-d. To see all possible commands, press Control-d before you type in any characters at all. For on-line help, use the “help” command.

    > help
    Enter command name, "help" for general help, or "quit" to exit help
    help> help
    This is lookupd's interactive query and testing facility.
    ...

There are interactive commands for all standard queries, such as userWithName, hostWithInternetAddress, and so on. When you enter a query, lookupd will print the result that it located or “nil” if the item was not found. lookupd also keeps track of the information source for each item and a number of other useful pieces of information that can help you track internal activities. For example:

    > userWithName: jru
    Dictionary: "NIAgent: user jru"
    _lookup_NI_checksum: 68850661
    _lookup_NI_domain: /
    _lookup_NI_index: 2
    _lookup_NI_server: pacific/network
    _lookup_info_system: NetInfo
    _writers_passwd: jru
    change: 0
    expire: 0
    gid: 114
    home: /Network/Servers/fiji/Users/jru
    name: jru
    netgroups: programmer
    passwd: 2YEsFfX2fmC8.
    realname: Jane Random User
    shell: /bin/csh
    uid: 1664
    + Category: user
    + Time to live: 43200
    + Age: 0 (expires in 43200 seconds)
    + Negative: No
    + Cache hits: 3
    + Retain count: 6

When you enter a query, lookupd follows its normal lookup order to obtain an answer. If you wish to query a specific agent, you can use the agent command. This stops the normal lookup and will direct all further queries to the agent you specify. You can use the agent command again to switch to a different agent, or use the normalLookupOrder command to resume normal lookups.

    > agent: NI
    > hostWithName: fiji
    Dictionary: "NIAgent: host fiji"
    _lookup_NI_checksum: 68850661
    _lookup_NI_domain: /
    _lookup_NI_index: 1
    _lookup_NI_server: pacific/network
    _lookup_info_system: NetInfo
    bootfile: mach
    bootparams:
    en_address: 0:5:2:fe:ef:4b
    ip_address: 192.42.172.168
    name: fiji
    netgroups: island
    serves: fiji/local
    > agent: DNS
    > hostWithName: fiji
    Dictionary: "D-0x6d470"
    _lookup_DNS_time_to_live: 28800
    _lookup_DNS_timestamp: 912796168
    _lookup_domain: mydomain.com
    _lookup_info_system: DNS
    ip_address: 192.42.172.168
    name: fiji.mydomain.com fiji
    > normalLookupOrder
    Using normal lookup order

You can get timing and usage statistics for all types of lookups using the statistics command. Timing measurements can help you determine what might be causing slow downs or problems on your network. Statistics for individual agents available using the statisticsForAgent command includes information such as current server bindings. You can examine all items in memory using the memory and showMemoryObject commands. This includes stored configuration settings, statistical records, and cached information.

OPEN SOURCE
The source code for lookupd is a available as part of Apple's Darwin open source initiative. lookupd is part of the netinfo project. More information on Darwin may be found on the Web at

    http://www.publicsource.apple.com

The netinfo project sources include a script named “BUILD” that may be used to compile the sources for Darwin, Mac OS X, Mac OS X Server, and for legacy NeXTSTEP 3.3 or OPENSTEP for Mach systems. Almost all of the features of the current lookupd work on legacy platforms, but future developments may not be available on those platforms.

FILES
/var/run/lookupd.pid

SEE ALSO
netinfod(8), syslog(5)