*BSD News Article 58275


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From: wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu (Bill Paul)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: NIS like SUNOS ?
Date: 28 Dec 1995 00:54:02 GMT
Organization: Columbia University Center for Telecommunications Research
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Daring to challenge the will of the almighty Leviam00se, Justin B. Harvey
(jharvey@mach2.armageddon.com) had the courage to say:

: One question though, should root on the ypp master server be able to
: change any users password? It continually asks for their old password.

: Kinda stumped,

: Justin

No, it shouldn't. You have to edit /var/yp/master.passwd to modify a
user's password. This will eventually change: I'm in the processes of
rewriting the server-side NIS programs from scratch (ypserv and
ypxfr are done. yppush is next, then yppasswdd) and this feature is
on my todo list. The new yppasswdd will allow root on the local machine
to change any user's password, and I'll be modifying passwd(1) and
chpass(1) accordingly.

Oh, one other thing I should mention about using NIS with FreeBSD:

As you may have noticed, FreeBSD's default cyrpt(3) function uses
MD5 hashes rather than the usual DES password encryption functions.
This doesn't affect NIS directly; you can use FreeBSD machines as
NIS servers and clients with either crypt(3) function. However, if
you're going to be using a FreeBSD system as an NIS client with a
foreign NIS server, you will need to install the DES encryption
package on the FreeBSD machine, otherwise none of the passwords
in the passwd.bywhatever maps will work on the client.

This may seem obvious to FreeBSD veterans, but these are the kinds
of things that can have newbies pulling their hair out. :)

-Bill

--
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-Bill Paul            (212) 854-6020 | System Manager
Work:         wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu | Center for Telecommunications Research
Home:  wpaul@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu | Columbia University, New York City
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