[Techtalk] NIS: Solaris 8 server, RH 8 client -- authentication not working

[Malcolm Tredinnick]

On Thu, Oct 24, 2002 at 04:07:15PM -0400, caitlynmaire at earthlink.net wrote:
> OK, I'm doing something simple and stupid wrong, but... I can't get
> NIS authentication to work on RH 8.  I'll admit I've only done NIS on
> Solaris (with Irix clients), so this is all new to me.  Oh, and yeah,
> I read the HOWTO and did everything suggested.

The HOWTO (if it's the NIS HOWTO you pulled off the web) is actually a
bit out of date and, while not saying anything that is strictly false,
parts of it are unnecessary.

> -shadow passwords are off (yuck!)

Not necessary (if you want to remove the "yuck"). I help administer a
medium-size NIS system at work and shadow passwords are on everywhere.

> -NIS client is binding to the NIS server -- no errors there at bootup
> -nis is in the appropriate places in the /etc/nsswitch.conf file (can provide the text if anyone wants to see it)
> -/etc/yp.conf file:
> 
> #
> domain <MYDOMAIN> server <nisserver fqdn>
> 
> -+:::::: added to /etc/passwd file
> 
> -/etc/pam.d/login file <needs to be tightened up later>
> 
> #%PAM-1.0
> auth		requisite	/lib/security/pam_unix.so
> auth		required	/lib/security/pam_securetty.so
> auth		required 	/lib/security/pam_nologin.so
> account		required	/lib/security/pam_unix.so
> password	required	/lib/security/pam_pwcheck.so	nullok
> password	required	/lib/security/pam_unix.so	nullok use_first_pass use_authtok
> session		required	/lib/security/pam_unix.so
> session		required	/lib/security/pam_limits.so
> session		optional	/lib/security/pam_console.so
> 
> If I try to do a ypcat hosts or ypcat passwd it tells me it can't bind
> to the server it seemed to bind to fine at boot time.  I don't get it.

There is a way to get the server to report debugging messages as well
(via syslog). I'll ferret that out.

> I'm not even worrying about automounting home directories yet.  The
> necessary home directories for testing exist.  I first want to get my
> Linux box talking to my Solaris box.

I'll have a poke around a bit later (once I've waded through the morning
email and attended to the work that seems to have accumulated overnight)
and compare various files.

However, just as a data point, I did get NIS working on a
Red Hat 8.0 machine yesterday without any trouble, so there's nothing
magical that needs doing with respect to earlier Red Hat versions (there
_was_ a subtle breakage when talking between Red Hat 7.0 servers and 7.3
clients, just to prove it doesn't always go smoothly).

Malcolm

-- 
"Very funny, Scotty. Now beam down my clothes."