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[ccp4bb]: SUMMARY: cross-platform NIS



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Dear All,

Thanks to all who responded on this one. I have decided to go for 2 separate
domains as suggested by Stephen Graham. Here is the original question
followed by the responses:

----------------------------------- 

Dear All,

I realise that this is not strictly CCP4 but.......

Has anyone managed to setup NIS across Linux and SG workstations? I
currently have my NIS master as a RedHat Linux 7.2 machine and another as a
client, which works fine. What I would like to do is include an SG machine
running Irix 6.5 as an NIS client in this domain as well. I have had a go at
this: by copying SG format .login and .cshrc files to a user home directory
on the linux box I can login to this account as if it were on an SG machine.
I can start programs by clicking on desktop icons eg. showcase and jot, and
I have priviledges to write files. However I can't open a shell ("xwsh: No
such file or diectory: can't start command"). Incidentally this SG machine
was formerly part of an entirely SG domain with NIS functioning normally.

Any help much appreciated. If it's just not possible I would also like to
know!

Thanks,

Dave

--------------------------------

Dave

I've recently set up RH7.2 as a NIS server to talk to Linux and Compaq
workstations.

I had to switch off the md5 password encryption - not supported on
Compaq (and probably not on SGI).

Peter

-- 
Peter Brick,
Blackett Laboratory, Department of Biological Sciences,
Imperial College, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2BW, UK
Tel: 020-7594-7704  Fax: 020-7589-0191

----------------------------------

general note: I use as a NIS master an OSF1 machine. RedHat 7.2 would not
integrate because the 'standard' distribution has a bug at the pam module.
Installing the latest pam rpm made things work.

I am not sure what you did with passwords etc. What I do is to have one
...cshrc
(I *never* use .login since its very non-standard). On the start of the
...cshrc I
get the OS type (uname) and then I set up things accordingly. This way we
have
integrated linux, SG's and Alpha's without any trouble.

Hope this helps.

    Tassos

------------------------------------

Hi,

We have this setup working perfectly:
RedHat 7.2 serving NIS and NFS-exporting users homedirectories etc. to SGI's
running irix 6.5.15.
(Same path to the home dir regardles of Linux or SGI)
The accounts are setup to use tcsh (not bash).

The important thing is to use NFS version 2 (not 3 which is default) to
mount the home dirs on the SGI, otherwise you get lots of error messages....
There was some problem with earlier versions of irix 6.5 and Linux NFS, so
an upgrade is recomended if you are not running the latest release (6.5.15)
...

Hope this helps somewhat,
	Mats
---
 Mats Okvist                  Center for Structural Biology
                              Gothenburg University
 Tel: +46-(0)31-773 3937      Dept. of Chemistry
 Fax: +46-(0)31-773 3910      Biochemistry and Biophysics
 E-mail: bcbpmao@bcbp.gu.se   P.O. Box 462, SE-405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden

--------------------------------------


We have a Linux/sparc box happily serving SGI workstations...

My first thought: this might not be a NIS problem at all.
But let's start systematically.


Check the home directory and the shell entry for this user.
Check that you can login to this account from another linux box using NIS
(not the
NIS-server) - if not, you might have forgotten to update the actual NIS
files
(updating only the /etc/passwd file on the NIS server machine)
 check /var/yp/Makefile or equivalent, and type make... once I've spend 2
afternoons adding a user because of this.

This is because your NIS machine is probably set up to check the local
passwd before using the NIS protocol. Which allows you to log in and do
something if the NIS server process itself has problems.

Also, there is a difference between shells, login shells (executing
/etc/login and
~/.login) and graphical logins (your X-windows setup messing things up).
xwsh is the default graphical shell on SGI.  Actually it is a terminal
emulation program to start a login shell running under X. It is either not
installed or it is not in your path (!!) and some setup file is looking for
it.

Check your path,  have a long stare at files like 
/etc/passwd, /etc/cshrc,  ~/.Xdefaults, ~/.cshrc , ~/.tcshrc, ~/.login

Then do some reading on the 'uname' command.

supposing you're only mixing Linux/i386 and SGI/IRIX 6.5:

if ('uname -s' == "Linux")
 then PATH=${PATH}:/where_to_find_binaries_for_linux/bin
else 
  PATH=${PATH}:/where_to_find_binaries_for_IRIX/bin 
endif

put this file on a drive visible for everybody and call it from every users
...cshrc (or equivalent).

Also note that, if your linux NIS master server uses shadow passwords, you
can't have an SGI NIS slave server.

I hope this helps.

Klaas

-----------------------------------------------

We have found it is easier to have two NIS domains, one for the SGs and
one for Linux machines.  We let everything reside on a common file
system (hosted by the Linux machines), and make the user's $HOME
directory on the SGs is $HOME/SGI-HOME from the Linux machines,
i.e. /homea/stepheng - my $HOME on the Linux machines
     /homea/stepheng/SGI-HOME - my $HOME on the SGs
The added advantage of this approach is that you do not need to be too
clever with your dot files, you can just keep two sets.

We tried using LDAP and an array of other things, but none were as
simple.  I have modified the 'adduser' scripts on the Linux machines to
ensure that we end up with the same user ID etc. on both systems.  We
just use the standard 'System Manager' approach for the SGs.

Stephen

----------------------------------


Hi Dave,

It should be easy to set up nis on cross platform machines.
To set up the SGI as a nis client:
	Go to toolchest --> system --> system manager.
	In the system manager select networking and conectivity.
	Select set up and start nis and fill in the forms.

On the nis server you probably need to add name and ip address of the sgi 
to your hosts data base.  Then make hosts.

Hope this helps,

Alun.

-- 
Alun Coker, E-mail: A.Coker@soton.ac.uk
University of Southampton, Bassett Crescent East, Southampton, Hants SO16 
7PX
Tel: +44 (0)23 8059 4340, Fax: +44 (0)23 80594459

----------------------------------------

David,

We tried to do what you're now attempting and ultimately had to settle for a
partial solution. I'm not quite clear on the tests you have made but I can
say our experience has been that with a Linux machine working as the NIS
server the SG machines did not map passwords correctly. That means we have
to have local accounts (or entries in the passwd file). Everything else
seems to work.

Brent

*******************************
Brent W. Segelke, Ph.D.
Lawrence Livermore National Lab
Livermore CA 94551
segelke1@llnl.gov
*******************************




-------------------------------

Dr. David M. Lawson
Biological Chemistry Dept.,
John Innes Centre,
Norwich,
NR4 7UH, UK.
Tel: +44-(0)1603-450725
Fax: +44-(0)1603-450018
Email: david.lawson@bbsrc.ac.uk
Web: http://www.jic.bbsrc.ac.uk/staff/david-lawson/index.htm