Todd Vierling writes:
> : no, compat only. which man page were you reading to infer that? (i'm
> : just curious; if the documentation is giving you that impression then
> : it needs to be fixed)
> 
> Well, `files' in nsswitch.conf(5) says that it pulls info from /etc/passwd.
> And AFAIK, `compat' is only used to enable `+:::::::'.
> 
> Under Solaris, you do need to explicitly specify the `files' source for
> passwd, whether using nis or nisplus or whatever.  Or at least, that's what
> Sun's shipped nsswitch example files do.

Under Solaris (and NetBSD);
	passwd: files	use /etc/passwd, do not recognise `+' tokens
	passwd: compat	use /etc/passwd, recognise `+' tokens and look
			up referenced tokens in the source referenced
			in passwd_compat.

Under Solaris 7 and Solaris 2.6 the relevant section in nsswitch.conf(4)
is titled ``Interaction with +/- syntax''. Similar wording has existed
in prior releases as far as I can remember (back to Solaris 2.2)

`compat' is the only source you should specify for passwd or group
if you want the `+/-' syntax to work.

If you want to emulate the old ``+ at end of file'' trick, and don't
need to use the ``+@netgroup'' or other funky ``+'' modes, you should
use `passwd: files nis' or `passwd: nis files', depending on your
preference.