Ubuntu
nis package

NIS users can't log in

Asked by Roland Roberts

I've been using Fedora for a long time, but this is the first Ubuntu install I've done. I've install 12.04 64-bit and after a bit of trouble getting autofs to play nice with how Fedora does it's NIS maps, I have directories mounting just fine. But I can't figure out how to get the login screen to work for NIS users.

First, there is no place to enter a user name; they seem to come from /etc/passwd only.

Second, while this link describes my problem pretty clearly (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...ight=nis+login), I can't log in. And that thread just ends without a resolution.

Last, it's pretty much the same as this thread (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...ight=nis+login), I can get the user name into the login screen by getting a console and su'ing to the nis user, but I can't log in as the user, neither at the console, nor vis the lightdm login screen.

nsswitch.conf is set to compat for users and groups, and I've added the + entries as the bottom (wasn't necessary with Fedora, but okay).

This is a show stopper for me. What am I missing in the setup to get NIS users recognized? I'm thinking it has to do with PAM config, but I can't find any information on this; certainly the Fedora PAM config has nis listed in the authentication methods.

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Roland Roberts
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Roland Roberts (1oland) said : 		#1

Okay, progress, sort of. I can log in on the console. I was missing a colon in the + entry in /etc/passwd. I still can't log in via the GUI/lightdm because my user has disappeared from the list after an unsuccessful login attempt.

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Roland Roberts (1oland) said : 		#2

There appear to be two items to get this going.

First is get rid of network manager. It would appear that networking is not starting things in the right order to get DNS, etc., working in time for NIS to be able to start. When network manager is in control, the GUI boot screen takes *very* long to come up. After removing network manager and setting up the interface by hand, boot is fast, ypbind works during boot

Second it to follow the directions at http://www.tejasbarot.com/2012/04/30/howto-other-login-option-on-login-screen-ubuntu-12-04-lts-precise-pangolin/. This gets me the ability to type in my NIS user name and get in.

Now, if only Gnome 3 would play nice with per-host session configuration. Launching X from the ubuntu host doesn't seem to like my Fedora configuration and vice versa.