Federated Naming Service
Encyclopedia
In computing
, the Federated Naming Service (FNS) or XFN (X/Open Federated Naming) is a system for uniting various name services under a single interface for the basic naming operations. It is produced by X/Open
and included in various Unix operatings systems such as Solaris Operating Environment versions 2.5 to 9.
The purpose of XFN and FNS is to allow applications to use widely heterogeneous naming services (such as NIS
, DNS
and so on) via a single interface, to avoid duplication of programming effort.
Unlike the similar LDAP, neither XFN nor FNS were ever popular nor widely used. FNS was last included in Solaris 9 and was not included with Solaris 10.
Computing
Computing is usually defined as the activity of using and improving computer hardware and software. It is the computer-specific part of information technology...
, the Federated Naming Service (FNS) or XFN (X/Open Federated Naming) is a system for uniting various name services under a single interface for the basic naming operations. It is produced by X/Open
X/Open
X/Open Company, Ltd. was a consortium founded by several European UNIX systems manufacturers in 1984 to identify and promote open standards in the field of information technology. More specifically, the original aim was to define a single specification for operating systems derived from UNIX, to...
and included in various Unix operatings systems such as Solaris Operating Environment versions 2.5 to 9.
The purpose of XFN and FNS is to allow applications to use widely heterogeneous naming services (such as NIS
Network Information Service
The Network Information Service, or NIS is a client–server directory service protocol for distributing system configuration data such as user and host names between computers on a computer network...
, DNS
Domain name system
The Domain Name System is a hierarchical distributed naming system for computers, services, or any resource connected to the Internet or a private network. It associates various information with domain names assigned to each of the participating entities...
and so on) via a single interface, to avoid duplication of programming effort.
Unlike the similar LDAP, neither XFN nor FNS were ever popular nor widely used. FNS was last included in Solaris 9 and was not included with Solaris 10.
External links and references
- Overview of FNS (Solaris 9 man page)
- Overview of the XFN interface (Solaris 9 man page)
- X/Open Federated Naming - specification for uniform naming interfaces between multiple naming systems (Elizabeth A. Martin, Hewlett-Packard Journal, December 1995)
- Federated Naming Service Guide for Solaris 2.5 (Sun Microsystems)