DESCRIPTION
The
nscd utility is the system caching daemon. It can cache almost all types of data and is basically intended to be used with the
nsswitch subsystem. The cache is actually per-user. This means that each user can work only with the cached data that were cached by themselves, and cannot poison the cache of other users. The
nscd utility supports two types of caching:
-
Type
-
Description
-
Common caching
-
Each cached element is the key+value pair. This type of caching supports policies which are applied when maximum number of cached elements is exceeded. Three policies are available:
FIFO (first in - first out),
LRU (least recently used) and
LFU (least frequently used). This type of caching is used with the
getXXXbyname() family of functions.
-
Multipart caching
-
Each cached element is the part of the elements sequence. This type of caching is intended to be used with the
getXXXent() family of functions.
The nscd utility is able not only to cache elements, but to perform the actual nsswitch lookups by itself. To enable this feature, use the perform-actual-lookups parameter in nscd.conf(5).
The nscd utility recognizes the following runtime options:
-
-n
-
Do not daemonize;
nscd will not fork or disconnect itself from the terminal.
-
-s
-
Single-threaded mode. Forces using only one thread for all processing purposes (it overrides the
threads parameter in the
nscd.conf(5) file).
-
-t
-
Trace mode. All trace messages will be written to stdout. This mode is usually used with
-n and
-s flags are used for debugging purposes.
-
-i
cachename
-
Invalidates personal cache. When specified,
nscd acts as the administration tool. It asks the already running
nscd to invalidate the specified part of the cache of the calling user. For example, sometimes you may want to invalidate your “
hosts
” cache. You can specify “
all
” as the
cachename to invalidate your personal cache as a whole. You cannot use this option for the
cachename for which the
perform-actual-lookups option is enabled.
-
-I
cachename
-
Invalidates the cache for every user. When specified,
nscd acts as the administration tool. It asks the already running
nscd to invalidate the specified part of the cache for every user. You can specify “
all
” as the
cachename to invalidate the whole cache. Only the root can use this option.