Anybody know what the steps are to set up NIS in the simplest form - ie NIS Server and NIS Client?
-Is all SW available form kernel.org?
-Is it source or executable format
-Any gotchas meaning experience only tells you.
Enviro is RHL 9 for server and Client
Thx

From what I remember about setting up NIS...
important files on master:
/etc/yp.conf
This ought to have a line in it that has something like domain your_domain_name broadcast

/etc/sysconfig/network
this ought to have something like:
NETWORKING=yes
HOSTNAME=hostname
NISDOMAIN=your_domain_name

Issue the command domainname make sure this is correct.
You can set it with the command domainname you_domain_name

Then I believe you run something like
/usr/lib/yp/ypinit -m
you can check to see if it is running with these commands:
service ypserv status
service ypbind status
ypwhich

You will also need to start a few other services...
service yppasswdd start
service ypxfrd start

On The clients
set/check your domain with the domainname command
Check the /etc/sysconfig/network
Critical things in /etc/sysconfig/network file:
NETWORKING=yes
HOSTNAME=hostname
NISDOMAIN=your_domain_name

check/set the /etc/yp.conf file
it should contain a line like the following --> domain your_domain_name server IP_of_master

run the following command
service ypbind restart

if it's successfull then these commands should work:
ypwhich
ypcat hosts
ypcat passwd

There are probably other things I'm forgetting but that's what I had in my notes...

Also worth noting that NIS is not great from a security perspective (in fact I would go as far as to say never run NIS if security is an issue for you). You might like to take a look at setting up LDAP which can achieve the same as NIS but more securely.

Iain.

I may have a firewall issue but trying to do Setup on YPserver box and Firewall->none has no effect. I remember faintly I have had problems removing the RHL9 firewall from High to Medium or None before. Could this be the case for no domain binding?
On the Server machine I did define YPbind stuff and start the service and it seems to be okay, YPWhich tells the name of the NIS server, but when the client is another box on same network that you can ping via DNS name and IP address the YPbind is just waiting ........... and finally start of client [Failed]....