NIS problems on FreeBSD 5.4

[Jeremy Utley]

On 8/8/05, Dan Nelson <dnelson at allantgroup.com> wrote:
> In the last episode (Aug 08), Jeremy Utley said:
> > I'm trying to use FreeBSD 5.4 as an NIS client, and am encountering
> > problems.  I've followed the instructions given in the FreeBSD docs
> > (http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/network-nis.html)
> > successfully, but the system does not recognize my NIS users.
> >
> > Running ypcat passwd shows expected output:
> >
> > freebsd5# ypcat passwd
> > Administrator:omitted:0:0::/root:/bin/bash
> > jeremy:omitted:500:100::/home/jeremy:/bin/bash
> > test:omitted:501:100::/home/test:/bin/bash
> 
> You might want to change these passwords now that everyone knows the
> hash :)

No worries - this is a reserved network with no direct connectivity to
the net at large, otherwise I would have done so.  I suppose I should
also mention that the NIS master server is a W2K3 AD controller with
Services for Unix, but that doesn't seem to be involved, since a linux
system on the same NIS domain appears to work properly.

> 
> > However, when I try to login as any of these 3 users, it rejects the
> > login - even using the "id" command fails:
> >
> > freebsd5# id jeremy
> > id: jeremy: no such user
> 
> You need either a plus line in your master.passwd file (best way to add
> it is to use the vipw command):
> 
>         +:::::::::

This part has already been done - it was part of the docs I followed
from the FreeBSD site.

> 
> Or you need this in /etc/nsswitch.conf:
> 
>         passwd: files nis

Haven't done this...the passwd section of my current nsswitch.conf is:

passwd: compat
passwd_compat: nis

Adding this to nsswitch.conf seems to have resolved the problem -
perhaps doing so should be added to the docs.

Jeremy