getting organized

[Ron Stanonik]

We have a small computer center of vaxs, which provides directories and
mail for almost everyone (as well as being the gateway).  There are also
several groups of suns, each group currently separately administrated (by
the projects owning the suns).

We're replacing the computer center vaxs with suns.

We could continue to keep the computer center separate from the research
groups, but this seems a waste, given the opportunity for sharing; ie, nfs
mounting mail and directories from the computer center on the research
suns, and yp for passwd, hosts, etc.

The trick is that the research groups want to, understandably, maintain
some autonomy; eg, administrate their own accounts.  Of course, that
raises concerns about allowing nfs between their suns and the computer
center machines.

We're wondering how other folks have organized given the tradeoffs between
autonomy and sharing?

The fascist approach would be that the research groups can't nfs mount
anything from the computer center unless they accept computer center
administration of accounts.

We're trying to puzzle out what can be done with the tools available; eg,
netgroups, multiple yp domains, etc?

Any suggestions?  (If this topic has already been beat to death, give me
an idea when and I'll rumage through the archives.)

Thanks,

Ron Stanonik
stanonik at nprdc.navy.mil

ps.  A couple of related questions.  Can a yp server serve more than one
domain; eg, can domainname be set to a list?  Apparently a yp client can
bind to more than one domain, just by asking.  Is that useful; ie, can
users be referred to as domainname.user?