NIS server not binding to itself

2007-12-25 8:06:00

Thanks to all the replies I received about an NIS server binding to another

server on the network rather than its own "ypserv" process.

As many people pointed out, "ypbind" is doing what it is supposed to:

broadcasting and binding to the first server to respond. At the time

when "ypbind" is invoked on the server, the "ypserv" process may not be

fully initialized or the machine is busy starting other daemons, so that

an NIS server on the network responds first.

The problem is that if the other NIS server goes down, the first machine

hangs until it can re-bind to another server. I've noticed that at this

point, it still does not bind to itself - it finds yet another slave server

to bind to. It seems counter-intuitive that an NIS server should block

in this situation, but that's the way it is.

"ypbind" can be invoked with the "-ypsetme" switch, to allow using the

"ypset" command to explicitly name the host to bind to. However, some

people have pointed out that the "-ypsetme" switch is a documented

security hole, so it's best not to use it.

Another suggestion was to put a "sleep" in /etc/rc.local between the

"ypserv" and "ypbind" invocations, but there is no guarantee that this

will work.

Thanks to all who responded...


--
Dave Rubin
Systems Manager
Polytechnic University
drubin@poly.edu

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