from
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)
Network Information Service
NIS
Yellow Pages
<networking, protocol> (NIS) {Sun Microsystems}' Yellow Pages
(yp) {client-server} {protocol} for distributing system
configuration data such as user and host names between
computers on a network.
Sun licenses the technology to virtually all other {Unix}
vendors.
The name "Yellow Pages" is a registered trademark in the
United Kingdom of British Telecommunications plc for their
(paper) commercial telephone directory. Sun changed the name
of their system to NIS, though all the commands and functions
still start with "yp", e.g. {ypcat}, {ypmatch}, {ypwhich}.
{Unix manual pages}: yp(3), ypclnt(3), ypcat(1), ypmatch(1).
(1995-04-08)