Network Information Service (NIS) B.11.31.04 Administrator's Guide

For more information about the private passwd file, see “Configuring the NIS
Master Server to Use a Private passwd File” (page 32).
10. Remove all the /etc/nis/passwd.hostname files from the NIS master server.
For more information about the passwd file, see passwd (4). For more information about
the sort command, see sort (1).
Creating the Master group File
The NIS master server group file is used to create NIS groups that store group
information on the NIS server. To create the Master NIS group file, you need to collect
the group information from all systems that will be members of the NIS domain and
combine them in one group file on the NIS master server.
To create the NIS master group file, complete the following steps:
NOTE: Back up the /etc/group file before you perform the steps described in this
section.
1. Log in to the NIS master server as a superuser.
2. If you have already created the /etc/nis directory in the previous section, skip
this step.
Create a new directory:
cd /etc
mkdir nis
3. Copy the /etc/group file from each host in the NIS domain as the
/etc/nis/group.hostname file to the NIS master server.
where:
hostname specifies the name of the host to which the file belongs.
For example, for a host ocelot, the group file is /etc/nis/group.ocelot.
4. Concatenate all the group files, including the master server’s group file, in a
temporary group file:
# cd /etc/nis
cat group group.hostname1 group.hostname2 ... > group.temp
5. Sort the temporary group file by group name:
# sort -o /etc/nis/group.temp -t: -k1,1 /etc/nis/group.temp
NOTE: The NIS master server does not require that the group file be sorted in
any of the fields. However, sorting the group file facilitates the search for duplicate
entries.
6. Examine the /etc/nis/group.temp file for duplicate group name entries.
Creating the Master group File 27