Date: Sat, 30 Sep 1995 18:58:24 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robert Watson <robert@fledge.watson.org>
To: questions@freebsd.org
Subject: yp/nis question again (or at least, revised)
Message-Id: <Pine.BSF.3.91.950930185019.6803B-100000@fledge.watson.org>
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NIS appears to work between my two systems just fine -- except that users 
cannot change passwords.  Any problems I had last night with ftp are 
fixed because I forgot to export my usr properly, and several users were 
using tcsh, which was only on one of the systems.  /usr is now exported 
and ftp works fine.

When users try to change passwords using yppasswd, they get this:

fledge>yppasswd
Changing YP password for robert on fledge.watson.org.
Please enter old password:
Changing YP password for robert.
Please enter new password:
Please retype new password:
Error while changing YP password.

The YP password has not been changed on fledge.watson.org.
fledge>

the password files are not updated.  yppasswd returns the following 
message to /var/log/messages:

Sep 30 18:52:31 fledge yppasswdd[7056]: update robert (uid=1000) from 
host 128.2.95.74 failed
Sep 30 18:52:31 fledge yppasswdd[7056]: Invalid characters in argument. 
Possible spoof attempt?

A ps for yp-related programs returns:

fledge>ps ax | grep yp
 7053 ??  Is     0:00.08 ypserv
 7056 ??  I      0:00.01 yppasswdd -s -f
 7058 ??  Is     0:00.01 ypbind -s

I have my master.passwd set to /etc/master.passwd in the makefile; here 
is the relevant portion modified as seemed to be right:

RPC       = $(YPSRCDIR)/rpc
SERVICES  = $(YPSRCDIR)/services
GROUP     = $(YPSRCDIR)/group
NETGROUP  = $(YPSRCDIR)/netgroup
PASSWD    = $(YPDIR)/passwd
MASTER    = $(YPSRCDIR)/master.passwd
YPSERVERS = $(YPDIR)/ypservers  # List of all NIS servers for a domain

With the YPDIR changed to YPSRCDIR so it uses the /etc version instead of 
/var/yp/master.passwd.  passwd, as expected, changes the local version 
but does not update the NIS versions (a make has to be run.)  I added a 
debugging line to usr/libexec/yppwupdate to create a file if it is run 
(so I could check the timestamp), and it turned out the yppwupdate is not 
being run at all.  Users can change their GECOS entries just fine:

fledge>ypchfn
Changing fullname for robert on fledge.watson.org.
Please enter password:

Changing full name for robert.
To accept the default, simply press return. To enter an empty
field, type the word "none".
Name [Robert Watson]: 
Location [Morewood E717]: 
Office Phone []: 
Home Phone [412-862-3197]: 

The fullname has been changed on fledge.watson.org.
fledge>

Admittadly I changed nothing, but I set the entries originally in ypchfn, 
so.. :)  I don't know what the invalid characters in arguement entry of 
/var/log means..  Here is the log entry for the chfn:

Sep 30 18:56:21 fledge yppasswdd[7056]: update robert (uid=1000) from 
host 128.2.95.74 successful. Password changed.
Sep 30 18:56:21 fledge yppasswdd[7056]: Shell unchanged 
(/usr/local/bin/tcsh), GECOS changed (Robert Watson).

Any advice would be much welcomed.  

Thanks,

Robert Watson