Using your NeXT as a NIS client

Posted on June 11, 2004 by Chris Lumens in NeXTSTEP.

I’ve got a network with a variety of platforms that all have to work together. I’d like to keep the same passwords and home directories across all these machines so there’s only one database for all the information. NEXTSTEP wants to use NetInfo but it’s the only machine I have that supports it. Since everything supports NIS, that’s what I am using.

I’m assuming you already have a NIS server set up on your local network and working properly. I’ll also assume that you’ve got some basic clue about NIS in general. This is not a guide explaining NIS - only how to set it up on your NeXT. The steps are as follows:

In /etc/hostconfig, add your NIS domain name to the YPDOMAIN= line. Note that your NIS domain name is not always the same as your DNS domain name. Adding it to this file will make sure the machine picks it up on each reboot.
To make that last change effective right now, run: domainname mydomainname
Now your machine needs to bind to the NIS server for the domain you’ve specified. There’s a line in /etc/rc to do this on reboot. To make it work now, run:

# /usr/etc/ypbind

It should automatically locate the NIS server and bind to it. Run ypwhich to see if it’s done this. If you get an error message, you may need to point ypbind at the server manually, like so:

# /usr/etc/yp/ypset ip_of_nis_server

If you need to do this, you can add a line to /etc/rc immediately after ypbind is run to make this happen on reboots.
Okay, now your NeXT is bound to the NIS domain but isn’t using it for any authentication. You can still look up the NIS maps as another way of checking that it’s bound properly. The following is a good bet:

# ypcat passwd

To use NIS for your passwords, add the following line to the bottom of the /etc/passwd file, after all the local (non-NIS) users:

+::::::

To use NIS for your groups, add the following line to the bottom of the /etc/group file, after all the local (non-NIS) groups:

+:::

I also removed all the local users from my NeXT just to make sure that all the login authentication is going through the NIS server.

So now your NeXT should be getting all its users and groups off the NIS server. Note that it’s a bad idea to have root’s password managed by NIS - leave that one local. Now all you need to do is get home directories mounted, deal with all those multi-platform issues, and so forth. Good luck!