NFS Services Administrator's Guide

Troubleshooting NFS Services
Common Problems with NIS+
Chapter 8 323
If a User Cannot Log In
❏ Have the user issue the keylogin command using the user’s secure
RPC password. In most cases, this password should be the same as
the user’s login password. If the keylogin does not work, have the
user try it with the password “nisplus.” If that doesn’t work, have the
user try to keylogin with his or her most recent password.
❏ If the user changed passwords with the passwd command, the user
will not be able to log into an NIS+ host. The passwd command
affects only the /etc/passwd file on the local host. Users must run
nispasswd to change their passwords in the NIS+ passwd table. If
your NIS+ server is running in NIS compatibility mode, users on NIS
clients must issue the yppasswd command to change their passwords
in the NIS+ passwd table.
❏ After a user has changed passwords, there may be a delay before the
new password is propagated through the domain. This delay can be
as long as many minutes, depending on the size of your domain. The
problem will probably resolve itself if you wait, or you can issue the
nisping org_dir command to force the servers to resynchronize.
❏ If the user is trying to log into a host in a remote domain, use
nismatch(1) to make sure the remote domain has a Local credential
for the user. Use nisaddcred(1M) to add a Local credential for the
user if none exists.
❏ Use the niscat(1) command to make sure your automounter maps
contain the proper information. If the source files or NIS maps used
to build the NIS+ tables contained periods in their names, NIS+
cannot build the tables correctly. Before you run nissetup(1M) or
nisserver(1M) to set up an NIS+ master server, replace periods in
automounter map names with underbars. For example, if your
master map is called auto.master, rename it to auto_master.
❏ If the /etc/nsswitch.conf file has been modified recently on the
user’s host, reboot the host to make sure all processes are using the
new configuration.
❏ Make sure the NIS+ hosts table does not contain a host with the
same name as the user. If a host has the same name as a user, one
credential will overwrite the other, and either the user or the root
user will no longer be able to perform a keylogin. (The keylogin is
performed automatically when a user logs in, if the user’s login
password is the same as the user’s secure RPC password.)