NSSWITCH.CONF(5) FreeBSD File Formats Manual NSSWITCH.CONF(5)
NAME
nsswitch.conf – name-service switch configuration file
DESCRIPTION
The nsswitch.conf file specifies how the nsdispatch(3) (name-service
switch dispatcher) routines in the C library should operate.
The configuration file controls how a process looks up various databases
containing information regarding hosts, users (passwords), groups, etc.
Each database comes from a source (such as local files, DNS, NIS , and
cache), and the order to look up the sources is specified in
nsswitch.conf.
Each entry in nsswitch.conf consists of a database name, and a space
separated list of sources. Each source can have an optional trailing
criterion that determines whether the next listed source is used, or the
search terminates at the current source. Each criterion consists of one
or more status codes, and actions to take if that status code occurs.