I am running our master network netinfo database on my TiBook and a couple of clones on other portables. Why? Well, in our company we all use portables and we don't have a Mac OS X based server.
I have been fighting with this configuration for quite a while as it is pretty unstable once you change the network location (e.g. forever bouncing apps). The problem is that no matter what network location you choose, nibindd (the process which controls your netinfo processes) will always start all the netinfo databases no matter if they are appropriate for you current network location or not.
Read the rest of the article for a workaround to this problem...
When you change to a location where you don't want to run a networked netinfo database, just execute the following script as root:
#!/bin/shThis will restart netinfo in standalone mode (only the local netinfo db gets started, nibindd won't get started at all).
KILL=/bin/kill
NIBINDD_PID=`cat /var/run/nibindd.pid`
LOOKUPD_PID=`cat /var/run/lookupd.pid`
$KILL -TERM $NIBINDD_PID
cd /var/db/netinfo
netinfod -s local
$KILL -HUP $LOOKUPD_PID
Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20020328001536810