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

User Cannot Log In

If the user cannot login, complete the following steps:

1. Verify whether you have entered the correct user ID and password.

2. If you have recently changed passwords, log in using the old password. If you can

a. Run the ps -ef command on the NIS master server to ensure that the

yppasswdd daemon is running. If it is not, run the following command to start

all NIS server processes:

# /sbin/init.d/nis.server start

b. Check the cron scripts on the slave servers to determine the frequency of

transfers of the passwd map from the master server. More frequent transfers

increase network traffic but give more timely updates. Once per hour is a

reasonable frequency. In addition, you might want to schedule map transfers

during intervals when the network load is low, and modify the password

during these intervals.

3. Determine the master server that provides the passwd map to the client:

# /usr/bin/ypwhich -m passwd

If the server does not respond, see “The NIS Server does not Respond” (page 59).

a. Log in as root to the NIS master server specified by the ypwhich command.

b. Ensure that you have an entry in the /etc/passwd file.

c. Generate the NIS passwd database from the /etc/passwd file (or from a private

password file if it is being used), and replicate it to the NIS slave servers:

# touch /etc/passwd

# cd /var/yp

# /usr/ccs/bin/make passwd

4. Check whether the NIS client has an entry in the passwd database on the NIS server

to which it is bound:

# /usr/bin/ypmatch username passwd

5. If the client has no entry in the passwd database, run the following commands on

the NIS server to which the client is bound:

# /usr/sbin/ypxfr passwd.byname

# /usr/sbin/ypxfr passwd.byuid

This command transfers the passwd database from the NIS master server to the

slave server where the command was run.

6. If your NIS client is bound to a slave server, use the following procedure to ensure

that the slave server is listed in the NIS master server’s ypservers database:

a. Run the following command on the NIS client to determine the server to which

the client is bound:

60 Troubleshooting NIS