Setting up NIS

Setting up NIS clients

You can use the Client Manager to configure or unconfigure an NIS client. See ``The Client Manager interface'' for more information.

Alternatively, to establish a machine as an NIS client, do the following:

Log in as the network administrator or the local administrator, make backup copies of the /etc/passwd and /etc/group files on the client, and edit the original files by adding an entry such as ``+:'' to the end. This ensures that processes consulting those files will have access to the NIS maps.
Enter /usr/sbin/ypinit -c to initialize the client.
When prompted, specify the NIS domain name and the list of NIS servers for the client.
Enter ps -ef | grep ypbind to confirm that ypbind is running. If it is not, enter the /usr/lib/netsvc/yp/ypbind command from the command line.
Ensure that users on the client use the yppasswd(1nis) command to create their new passwords in the passwd maps. Before they attempt to do this, make sure the yppasswdd daemon is running on the master server for the password map.
If the yppasswdd daemon is not configured to run on the master server for the password map, you can enable it as described in ``Starting the yppasswdd daemon''. (See also ``Changing user passwords''.)

Note that users can also use the passwd(1) command to change their passwords in the NIS map, but they can do so only if they do not have a password already specified in /etc/shadow (see shadow(4)). Also, when the user has an entry in the local passwd(4) file, running the passwd command only affects the local client's environment. In this case, you must run the yppasswd command to change the NIS password maps:

yppasswd login_name

When a user types this command, yppasswd prompts for the new password twice, as does the local passwd command. However, when the user has successfully responded, yppasswd (or passwd when acting as such) puts the new password in the passwd.byname and passwd.byuid maps.

Users' NIS passwords can be different from the passwords on their own machine. If the yppasswdd daemon is not set to make and propagate the newly modified password database immediately, there may be a considerable time lag between the time the user sets the new NIS password and the time it takes effect. Even when it is set, map pushing is not instantaneous, so if it takes a while it does not mean that the process failed.