This section is obsolete.
A "name service" is Linux's mechanism for answering these queries:
- the userid for a given username and vice versa
- the groupid for a given groupname and vice versa
- the home directory for a user
- the shell for a user
- what groups a user is in
The libnss-afs package lets linux use the AFS user database (the ptserver or protection server) as a name service and makes PAGs show up as a special group. To enable these changes, edit /etc/nsswitch.conf and change the passwd and group lines to look like this:
passwd: afs files group: afs files shadow: files
afs is checked before files to keep UIDs consistent.