How to Set Up a Root NIS+ Master

How to Set Up a Root NIS+ Master


To set up a root server, become the superuser on the root master, and
use the nisserver script to build the root domain:

root-server# nisserver -v -r -d domain_name

(where domain_name is your NIS+ domain.)

Afterwards, you will want to populate the NIS+ tables from a set of
ASCII files. It is a good idea to create a seperate directory and then
edit the files required to populate the tables there.

For example, create a directory /var/tmp/nisfiles and copy the files
from the /etc directory to /var/tmp/nisfiles, and then edit the files.
You may wish to edit the passwd file, for example, because you only
need the entries for the normal users in the NIS+ passwd table.

Following is the list of standard NIS+ tables, which you may wish to
include when you populate your maps (although it is not required that
they all be included):

aliases
auto_home
auto_master
bootparams
cred
group
hosts
netgroups
netmasks
networks
passwd
protocols
rpc
services
timezone

To populate the tables, change to the directory where the edited files
are, and then run the nispopulate script:

root-master# cd /var/tmp/nisfiles
root-master# nispopulate -v -F

One important thing to note is the network passwd created in the
credential table for all the users is "nisplus". This should be
changed to something more secure. For normal users, every user needs
to run keylogin and then do the chkey command and enter a new network
passwd. It is highly recommended that login passwd and the network
passwd be the same. In the NIS+ enviroment, login explicitly runs
keylogin and so, if the network passwd is same as the login passwd,
users don't have to do a seperate keylogin to authenticate.

When the nispopulate is done, you should reboot your server. When it
comes back up, you can verify that NIS+ is working correctly by
running the standard NIS+ commands:

root-master%% nisls
root-master%% niscat passwd.org_dir

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