I have a Fedora 20 NIS server with separate passwd and shadow maps (sourced from /etc) and running yppasswdd, with a set of Fedora 20 clients connecting to it.

Users are unable to change their own NIS passwords. If a standard user types yppasswd (on either a client or the NIS master server), after entering their new password, they get the error

crypt() call failed

Or, just using passwd, they get

NIS password could not be changed. passwd: Authentication token manipulation error

After entering and re-entering the new password.

On the other hand, logging in as root to the NIS master server and using "yppasswd username" works just fine - root is able to change NIS passwords using yppasswd.

How can I make it so users can change their own passwords?

Many thanks.

The yppasswd command changes (or installs) a network password and associates it with the name you specify in the UserName parameter. To create or change a password, you must be the owner of the password you want to change. The Network Information Services (NIS) password can be different from the one on your own machine. Root users on an NIS server can change the password of another user without knowing the user's original password. To do this, the Root user enters their password in place of the user's original password. Root users on an NIS client, however, do not have this privilege.

This error is being produced because you are using shadowed password files and the shadow doesn’t have entry for this user. i.e, /etc/passwd has an entry for this user, but /etc/shadow doesn’t.

The username in the /etc/passwd should be matched with /etc/shadow.

I've just checked and the username in /etc/passwd matches that in /etc/shadow and, indeed, the usernames also match between the NIS maps passwd.byname and shadow.byname.

Could there be another cause of this error? And is it relevant that I have MERGE_PASSWD=false set in the yp makefile so that there are separate NIS passwd and shadow maps?

If user wants to change his own passwd, do not write username. Try with only yppasswd.
If you are still facing the problem.
Check with rpasswd

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On the client I would expect the user to be missing from both passwd and shadow for the NIS values to be used.