whimper NIS kerfluffle

Fri Jul 23 19:00:38 PDT 2004

On Fri, Jul 23, 2004 at 05:01:33PM -0700, Darren Dunham wrote:
> 
> broadcast or pointed at a server (is /var/yp/binding/<domain>/ypservers
> populated)?

/var/yp/binding/<domain>/ypservers is populated.  When pointed at a
server, it reliably fails.  When I use -broadcast, it sometimes works,
sometimes doesn't (multiple slaves on the same net).  When it "works"
with broadcast, the maps can't be transferred.  rpcinfo still exhibits
the hanging behavior I describe when it "works" in this manner.

> 
> > rpcinfo -b 100004 1 from another client on the same network verifies
> > that this misbehaving host is indeed an NIS client.  rpcinfo -p on the
> > misbeahving host...
> 
> > ...hangs.  As does any other rpcinfo attempt, as long as ypbind is
> > running.  As soon as it's killed, rpcinfo behaves just as it should.
> 
> Never seen that at all... I would probably truss() ypbind and/or rpcinfo
> to see if that gave any additional clues.

Did.  It wasn't informative.  Also ran the rpc daemons in debug mode,
with no further clue provided.

> 
> > To add insult to injury, if I start things up using
> > /usr/lib/netsvc/ypbind -ypsetme, then follow this with a /usr/sbin/ypset
> > <name_of_master>, NIS starts just fine on this misbegotten doorstop.
> > ypwhich gives the correct info.  ypcat <mapname> works, for any value of
> > mapname the server may contain.  In short, NIS works.
> > 
> > Interestingly, starting ypbind -broadcast sometimes works, sometimes
> > won't, depending on which slave answers the broadcast first.  They'll
> > all allow this cheese grater's ypwhich to report the master it's bound
> > to, but sometimes ypcat <mapname> will fail with an RPC error.
> 
> Bad server on the subnet?  (shouldn't cause rpcbind to hang though)
> 

Nope.  Others use it reliably.

> (Did you mean 'server it's bound to' rather than 'master'?)
> 

I did.  I tend to slip and say "master" when I'm referring to the
slaves, because of the likelihood the master may have disappeared.

> If ypwhich shows a bound server, but ypcat fails, I'd think security
> settings on the server (securenets file?)

Hm.  Hadn't checked that.  I'll have a look.

> 
> > I'm no RPC guru.  In fact, RPC bothers me on many levels.  But I can't
> > for the life of me see what's causing this problem.  I've been staring
> > at it off and on for two days now, and I think I've just overthought it.
> > Am I missing something simple?  Is there some bit of NIS trivia I've
> > managed to overlook?
> 
> OS is 8?  Something else?

Yep.  8.

> 
> I can't say I've seen anything quite like that before.  
> 

Me either, and I've been using it since before the lawsuit over the use
of "Yellow Pages".

-- 
Mark C. Langston            GOSSiP Project          Sr. Unix SysAdmin
mark at bitshift.org   http://sufficiently-advanced.net    mark at seti.org
Systems & Network Admin      Distributed               SETI Institute
http://bitshift.org         P2P Antispam          http://www.seti.org

*whimper* NIS kerfluffle

whimper NIS kerfluffle