NIS is writing to passwd instead of shadow

[blainepruitt]

Hi all,

I'm having bit of trouble that I'm hoping someone can help me with. I have implemented password aging in an NIS environment. The NIS files are contained in a location other than /etc. When a user tries to update their password it writes the new encrypted password into the correct location, but into passwd instead of shadow. I need the shadow file in place because it sets the parameters for their password expiration dates. I've check nsswitch.conf to make sure that the entries were right there, here is what I have:

passwd: files nis

I haven't tried flipping the two around since this is a production machine I didn't want to impact anyone. If you have any thoughts on this it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
bp

 

[crasho2001]

Hi,

In /etc there are passwd and shadow files. But NIS only has passwd file.Actually NIS passwd file includes also some part of shadow file. And a bad news for you. As I know, NIS does not support password aging. You have to use more powerful software like NIS + . If you use password aging, what will happen?
-When password expired...
---If the user tries to login from NIS client machine,user will login to system without changing password.
---If the user tries to login from NIS server machine,user will login after changing old password.
Regards

 

[Soladm]

bp,

I use NIS (Solaris 8 platform) and it uses both the password and shadow file, but I put all my NIS directories and files in /etc/nis. I also use password aging and it seems to work. If my password expires, the next time I log in it asks me to change it. I have not worked with it that long though. Just wondering, were you actually looking at the passwd file and seeing the encrypted password, or were you using a command like ypcat passwd... if you use ypcat, it combines fields 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 from the passwd file with field 2 (encrypted password) from the shadow file and displays the entries.

For more robust administration capabilities, I will have to agree with crasho2001 and say switch to NIS+.

Good Luck!!! Have a Great Day!!
~Sol
Sys Admin

 

[blainepruitt]

Thanks for your help. I've decided to either move my PWDIR to /etc or write a perl script that would grab fields from both files and combine them to make a new shadow file.