NAME

publickey − public and secret key database

SYNOPSIS

/etc/publickey

Remarks

The Network Information Service (NIS) was formerly known as Yellow Pages (yp).  Although the name has changed, the functionality of the service remains the same. 

DESCRIPTION

/etc/publickey is the publickey database file used for secure networking. 

Each entry in the database consists of the following fields of information:

username The network user name, which may refer to either a user or a host. 

publickey The user’s public key, given in hex notation. 

; A colon (separator). 

secretkey The user’s password-encrypted secret key (also in hex notation). 

This file can be modified in one of two ways:

1. The user can modify this file with chkey. 

2. The system administrator can modify this file with newkey. 

A complete /etc/publickey database file should only reside (and be maintained) on the Network Information Service (NIS) master machine, where it is converted into the NIS database, publickey.byname. 

The /etc/publickey file should contain a default entry for nobody. 

If this entry is commented out, chkey only allows edits to existing user keys: new entries (keys) cannot be created in the file until the comment characters are removed from the nobody entry. 

AUTHOR

The publickey database was developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. 

SEE ALSO

chkey(1), newkey(1M) ypupdated(1M), publickey(3R). 

Hewlett-Packard Company  —  HP-UX Release 10.20:  July 1996