NIS Client 's /etc/passwd

Hi ,
I've set up an NIS Server on a Linux machine (Red hat) and verified
according to the Linux
NIS How -to : http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/NIS-HOWTO/index.html

I try to login to the client with my NIS username but I get "unknown
user"
a look at the system log /var/log/messages gives me "unknown user". I
checked up some
FAQs but not able to find an answer.

I guess I am missign something basic to do with the local /etc/passwd
file.
Can someone throw some light?
Thanks in advance!!

(E-Mail Removed) wrote:

> Hi ,
> I've set up an NIS Server on a Linux machine (Red hat) and verified
> according to the Linux
> NIS How -to : http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/NIS-HOWTO/index.html
>
> I try to login to the client with my NIS username but I get "unknown
> user"
> a look at the system log /var/log/messages gives me "unknown user". I
> checked up some
> FAQs but not able to find an answer.
>
> I guess I am missign something basic to do with the local /etc/passwd
> file.
> Can someone throw some light?
> Thanks in advance!!

Check your /etc/nsswitch.conf file.

--

Dan C. Gets caught apparently Plagiarizing:
Message ID: <3ab7l3-(E-Mail Removed)>
Yeah, this is the type critical of me!

1) Make sure your nsswitch.conf has the following lines:

passwd: files nis
shadow: files nis
group: files nis

or

passwd: compat
group: compat

Otherwise, the OS is just looking it up on local files.

2) Make sure you have nscd installed. Made that mistake recently.
rpm -qa | grep nscd

3) Make sure you can bind correctly -- ypmatch -k <username> passwd
should return you your entry. May need to be root to do this.






(E-Mail Removed) wrote:
> Hi ,
> I've set up an NIS Server on a Linux machine (Red hat) and verified
> according to the Linux
> NIS How -to : http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/NIS-HOWTO/index.html
>
> I try to login to the client with my NIS username but I get "unknown
> user"
> a look at the system log /var/log/messages gives me "unknown user". I
> checked up some
> FAQs but not able to find an answer.
>
> I guess I am missign something basic to do with the local /etc/passwd
> file.
> Can someone throw some light?
> Thanks in advance!!

On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 07:51:51 -0700, christian.charette wrote:

(please don't top post. It makes it very hard to reply and makes threads
hard to follow)

> (E-Mail Removed) wrote:
>> Hi ,
>> I've set up an NIS Server on a Linux machine (Red hat) and verified
>> according to the Linux
>> NIS How -to : http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/NIS-HOWTO/index.html
>>
>> I try to login to the client with my NIS username but I get "unknown
>> user"

> 1) Make sure your nsswitch.conf has the following lines:
>
> passwd: files nis
> shadow: files nis
> group: files nis

preferably.

> or
>
> passwd: compat
> group: compat

In which case you have to insert the BSD style "separators" into the
passwd and group files.

> Otherwise, the OS is just looking it up on local files.
>
> 2) Make sure you have nscd installed. Made that mistake recently. rpm
> -qa
> | grep nscd

Why? Nscd and NIS interact very badly. You make a change to a map and nscd
has cached the old value and it doesn't take effect. IME it is not a good
idea to run it in a NIS environment (or indeed at all unless you have some
serious performance problems with your name services). I do not have nscd
installed on this (Debian) NIS client.

> 3) Make sure you can bind correctly -- ypmatch -k <username> passwd
> should return you your entry. May need to be root to do this.

You don't need to be root.

Regards, Ian