NIS Configuration on CentOS/RHEL Linux

The Network Information Service or NIS (originally called Yellow Pages or YP) is a client–server directory service protocol for distributing system configuration data such as user and host names between computers on a computer network. Sun Microsystems developed the NIS; the technology is licensed to virtually all other Unix vendors.

On this tutorial we will see configuration of NIS for user management , NIS is a service that provides the same working environment to any user on that network irrespective of the system on that which has been used for login purpose. For example if NIS server is set up in a single system and configured to hold user accounts and their passwords and access information. Then any user on that network can login to his/her account that is set up in the NIS server from any system (with nis client running) on that configured network.

At first you need to define the NIS master server which contains all source files for the various maps like /etc/passwd, /etc/group or /etc/hosts. The NIS server process ypserv needs to be run on this host. The ypserv daemon is typically activated at system startup. There could be more hosts running ypserv, this one are called “slaves“. They get their maps from the master server. If a slave goes down, it will miss updates from the master.

On other machines using the NIS services as client, you have to run ypbind. ypbind must run on every machine which has NIS client processes; ypserv may or may not be running on the same node, but must be running somewhere on the network. For normal users, you need the yp-tools. This package provide tools for communication with ypbind, ypset and ypwhich, tools for accessing the NIS maps, ypcat, ypmatch and yppoll, and tools for changing NIS user information, ypchfn, ypchsh and yppasswd.

For Server:
Computer Name = webmanual01
IP Address = 10.190.195.156
NIS Domain Name= WEDDOMAIN

For Client:
Computer Name = webmanual02
IP Address = 10.190.195.160

Procesure to setup NIS for your environment

First Configure NFS Server to share /home folder of webmanual01

Task 1 :Install required package for nfs server:

Task 2: Edit the /etc/exports file to allow NFS mounts of the /home directory with read/write access.

Task 3: Edit the /etc/sysconfig/nfs file to define static port numbers:

Task 4 : Restart following services:

/etc/init.d/nfs start
/etc/init.d/portmap restart
/etc/init.d/nfslock restart

Task 5 : Set following services to automatically start at boot time:

Task 6 : Show the exported files :

Configure NIS Server Now:

Task 1 : Install packages required (ypserv, ypbind, yp-tools) for NIS Server.

Task 2 : Edit /etc/sysconfig/network to add following entry:

Here the WEMDOMAIN is the NIS domain name.

Task 3 : Start following NIS services:

service ypserv start
service yppasswdd start
service portmap restart

Example

Task 4 : Set following services to automatically start at boot time:

Task 5: Now add NIS client to NIS server by running comand /usr/lib/yp/ypinit -m

Task 6 : Add user

Task 7 : Update the NIS domain’s authentication files by executing the “make” command in the /var/yp directory as below

On Client Side configure auto.home and auto.master on server webmanual02

Task 1 : Make following entry in /etc/auto.home
* -fstype=nfs,soft,intr serveripaddress:/home/&

Example

Task 2 : Make following entry in /etc/auto.master

Task 3 : Start autofs service and set it to automatically start at boot time.

Task 4 : Now run authconfig-tui — > Use NIS–> Fill up the following information

Then Press OK and you will get output like below

Now login with user abinash to client machine .

Conclusion

NIS is a very useful tool for centralized login management, but it has two shortcomings: NIS clients are typically limited to Unix or Linux operating systems, and the password information passes over the network unencrypted.