NIS problems on FreeBSD 5.4

[Dan Nelson]

In the last episode (Aug 09), Jeremy Utley said:
> 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.
> > 
> > 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.

Only one is necessary.  You can remove the plus line from master.passwd
if you're using the "passwd: files nis" line.  With "passwd: compat",
the NIS tables are consulted whenever there's a + or - line in
master.passwd and netgroups are used. With "passwd: files nis", nis is
checked if the user isn't in the local passwd file, and you can't use
netgroups.  Also remember to change the "group:" line in nsswitch.conf
to match, and remove the + line from /etc/groups.

-- 
	Dan Nelson
	dnelson at allantgroup.com