Network Information System (NIS) is
designed to centralize administration of UNIX®-like systems
such as Solaris™, HP-UX, AIX®, Linux, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and
FreeBSD. NIS was originally known as Yellow
Pages but the name was changed due to trademark issues. This
is the reason why NIS commands begin with
yp.
NIS is a Remote Procedure Call (RPC)-based client/server system that allows a group of machines within an NIS domain to share a common set of configuration files. This permits a system administrator to set up NIS client systems with only minimal configuration data and to add, remove, or modify configuration data from a single location.
FreeBSD uses version 2 of the NIS protocol.
Table 28.1 summarizes the terms and important processes used by NIS:
| Term | Description |
|---|---|
| NIS domain name | NIS servers and clients share an NIS domain name. Typically, this name does not have anything to do with DNS. |
| rpcbind(8) | This service enables RPC and must be running in order to run an NIS server or act as an NIS client. |
| ypbind(8) | This service binds an NIS client to its NIS server. It will take the NIS domain name and use RPC to connect to the server. It is the core of client/server communication in an NIS environment. If this service is not running on a client machine, it will not be able to access the NIS server. |
| ypserv(8) | This is the process for the NIS server. If this service stops running, the server will no longer be able to respond to NIS requests so hopefully, there is a slave server to take over. Some non-FreeBSD clients will not try to reconnect using a slave server and the ypbind process may need to be restarted on these clients. |
| rpc.yppasswdd(8) | This process only runs on NIS master servers. This daemon allows NIS clients to change their NIS passwords. If this daemon is not running, users will have to login to the NIS master server and change their passwords there. |
There are three types of hosts in an NIS environment:
NIS master server
This server acts as a central repository for host configuration information and maintains the authoritative copy of the files used by all of the NIS clients. The
passwd,group, and other various files used by NIS clients are stored on the master server. While it is possible for one machine to be an NIS master server for more than one NIS domain, this type of configuration will not be covered in this chapter as it assumes a relatively small-scale NIS environment.NIS slave servers
NIS slave servers maintain copies of the NIS master's data files in order to provide redundancy. Slave servers also help to balance the load of the master server as NIS clients always attach to the NIS server which responds first.
NIS clients
NIS clients authenticate against the NIS server during log on.
Information in many files can be shared using
NIS. The
master.passwd,
group, and hosts
files are commonly shared via NIS.
Whenever a process on a client needs information that would
normally be found in these files locally, it makes a query to
the NIS server that it is bound to
instead.
This section describes a sample NIS
environment which consists of 15 FreeBSD machines with no
centralized point of administration. Each machine has its own
/etc/passwd and
/etc/master.passwd. These files are kept
in sync with each other only through manual intervention.
Currently, when a user is added to the lab, the process must
be repeated on all 15 machines.
The configuration of the lab will be as follows:
| Machine name | IP address | Machine role |
|---|---|---|
ellington | 10.0.0.2 | NIS master |
coltrane | 10.0.0.3 | NIS slave |
basie | 10.0.0.4 | Faculty workstation |
bird | 10.0.0.5 | Client machine |
cli[1-11] |
10.0.0.[6-17] | Other client machines |
If this is the first time an NIS scheme is being developed, it should be thoroughly planned ahead of time. Regardless of network size, several decisions need to be made as part of the planning process.
When a client broadcasts its requests for info, it includes the name of the NIS domain that it is part of. This is how multiple servers on one network can tell which server should answer which request. Think of the NIS domain name as the name for a group of hosts.
Some organizations choose to use their Internet domain
name for their NIS domain name. This is
not recommended as it can cause confusion when trying to
debug network problems. The NIS domain
name should be unique within the network and it is helpful
if it describes the group of machines it represents. For
example, the Art department at Acme Inc. might be in the
“acme-art” NIS domain. This
example will use the domain name
test-domain.
However, some non-FreeBSD operating systems require the NIS domain name to be the same as the Internet domain name. If one or more machines on the network have this restriction, the Internet domain name must be used as the NIS domain name.
There are several things to keep in mind when choosing a machine to use as a NIS server. Since NIS clients depend upon the availability of the server, choose a machine that is not rebooted frequently. The NIS server should ideally be a stand alone machine whose sole purpose is to be an NIS server. If the network is not heavily used, it is acceptable to put the NIS server on a machine running other services. However, if the NIS server becomes unavailable, it will adversely affect all NIS clients.
The canonical copies of all NIS files
are stored on the master server. The databases used to store
the information are called NIS maps. In
FreeBSD, these maps are stored in
/var/yp/[domainname] where
[domainname] is the name of the
NIS domain. Since multiple domains are
supported, it is possible to have several directories, one for
each domain. Each domain will have its own independent set of
maps.
NIS master and slave servers handle all NIS requests through ypserv(8). This daemon is responsible for receiving incoming requests from NIS clients, translating the requested domain and map name to a path to the corresponding database file, and transmitting data from the database back to the client.
Setting up a master NIS server can be
relatively straight forward, depending on environmental needs.
Since FreeBSD provides built-in NIS support,
it only needs to be enabled by adding the following lines to
/etc/rc.conf:
nisdomainname="test-domain"nis_server_enable="YES"
nis_yppasswdd_enable="YES"
| This line sets the NIS domain name
to |
| This automates the start up of the NIS server processes when the system boots. |
| This enables the rpc.yppasswdd(8) daemon so that users can change their NIS password from a client machine. |
Care must be taken in a multi-server domain where the server machines are also NIS clients. It is generally a good idea to force the servers to bind to themselves rather than allowing them to broadcast bind requests and possibly become bound to each other. Strange failure modes can result if one server goes down and others are dependent upon it. Eventually, all the clients will time out and attempt to bind to other servers, but the delay involved can be considerable and the failure mode is still present since the servers might bind to each other all over again.
A server that is also a client can be forced to bind to a
particular server by adding these additional lines to
/etc/rc.conf:
nis_client_enable="YES" # run client stuff as well nis_client_flags="-SNIS domain,server"
After saving the edits, type
/etc/netstart to restart the network and
apply the values defined in /etc/rc.conf.
Before initializing the NIS maps, start
ypserv(8):
#service ypserv start
NIS maps are generated from the
configuration files in /etc on the
NIS master, with one exception:
/etc/master.passwd. This is to prevent
the propagation of passwords to all the servers in the
NIS domain. Therefore, before the
NIS maps are initialized, configure the
primary password files:
#cp /etc/master.passwd /var/yp/master.passwd#cd /var/yp#vi master.passwd
It is advisable to remove all entries for system
accounts as well as any user accounts that do not need to be
propagated to the NIS clients, such as
the root and any
other administrative accounts.
Note:
Ensure that the
/var/yp/master.passwd is neither
group or world readable by setting its permissions to
600.
After completing this task, initialize the
NIS maps. FreeBSD includes the
ypinit(8) script to do this. When generating maps
for the master server, include -m and
specify the NIS domain name:
ellington#ypinit -m test-domainServer Type: MASTER Domain: test-domain Creating an YP server will require that you answer a few questions. Questions will all be asked at the beginning of the procedure. Do you want this procedure to quit on non-fatal errors? [y/n: n]nOk, please remember to go back and redo manually whatever fails. If not, something might not work. At this point, we have to construct a list of this domains YP servers. rod.darktech.org is already known as master server. Please continue to add any slave servers, one per line. When you are done with the list, type a <control D>. master server : ellington next host to add:coltranenext host to add:^DThe current list of NIS servers looks like this: ellington coltrane Is this correct? [y/n: y]y[..output from map generation..] NIS Map update completed. ellington has been setup as an YP master server without any errors.
This will create /var/yp/Makefile
from /var/yp/Makefile.dist. By
default, this file assumes that the environment has a
single NIS server with only FreeBSD clients.
Since test-domain has a slave server,
edit this line in /var/yp/Makefile so
that it begins with a comment
(#):
NOPUSH = "True"
Every time a new user is created, the user account must
be added to the master NIS server and the
NIS maps rebuilt. Until this occurs, the
new user will not be able to login anywhere except on the
NIS master. For example, to add the new
user jsmith to the
test-domain domain, run these commands on
the master server:
#pw useradd jsmith#cd /var/yp#make test-domain
The user could also be added using adduser
jsmith instead of pw useradd
smith.
To set up an NIS slave server, log on
to the slave server and edit /etc/rc.conf
as for the master server. Do not generate any
NIS maps, as these already exist on the
master server. When running ypinit on the
slave server, use -s (for slave) instead of
-m (for master). This option requires the
name of the NIS master in addition to the
domain name, as seen in this example:
coltrane#ypinit -s ellington test-domainServer Type: SLAVE Domain: test-domain Master: ellington Creating an YP server will require that you answer a few questions. Questions will all be asked at the beginning of the procedure. Do you want this procedure to quit on non-fatal errors? [y/n: n]nOk, please remember to go back and redo manually whatever fails. If not, something might not work. There will be no further questions. The remainder of the procedure should take a few minutes, to copy the databases from ellington. Transferring netgroup... ypxfr: Exiting: Map successfully transferred Transferring netgroup.byuser... ypxfr: Exiting: Map successfully transferred Transferring netgroup.byhost... ypxfr: Exiting: Map successfully transferred Transferring master.passwd.byuid... ypxfr: Exiting: Map successfully transferred Transferring passwd.byuid... ypxfr: Exiting: Map successfully transferred Transferring passwd.byname... ypxfr: Exiting: Map successfully transferred Transferring group.bygid... ypxfr: Exiting: Map successfully transferred Transferring group.byname... ypxfr: Exiting: Map successfully transferred Transferring services.byname... ypxfr: Exiting: Map successfully transferred Transferring rpc.bynumber... ypxfr: Exiting: Map successfully transferred Transferring rpc.byname... ypxfr: Exiting: Map successfully transferred Transferring protocols.byname... ypxfr: Exiting: Map successfully transferred Transferring master.passwd.byname... ypxfr: Exiting: Map successfully transferred Transferring networks.byname... ypxfr: Exiting: Map successfully transferred Transferring networks.byaddr... ypxfr: Exiting: Map successfully transferred Transferring netid.byname... ypxfr: Exiting: Map successfully transferred Transferring hosts.byaddr... ypxfr: Exiting: Map successfully transferred Transferring protocols.bynumber... ypxfr: Exiting: Map successfully transferred Transferring ypservers... ypxfr: Exiting: Map successfully transferred Transferring hosts.byname... ypxfr: Exiting: Map successfully transferred coltrane has been setup as an YP slave server without any errors. Remember to update map ypservers on ellington.
This will generate a directory on the slave server called
/var/yp/test-domain which contains copies
of the NIS master server's maps. Adding
these /etc/crontab entries on each slave
server will force the slaves to sync their maps with the maps
on the master server:
20 * * * * root /usr/libexec/ypxfr passwd.byname 21 * * * * root /usr/libexec/ypxfr passwd.byuid
These entries are not mandatory because the master server automatically attempts to push any map changes to its slaves. However, since clients may depend upon the slave server to provide correct password information, it is recommended to force frequent password map updates. This is especially important on busy networks where map updates might not always complete.
To finish the configuration, run
/etc/netstart on the slave server in order
to start the NIS services.
An NIS client binds to an NIS server using ypbind(8). This daemon broadcasts RPC requests on the local network. These requests specify the domain name configured on the client. If an NIS server in the same domain receives one of the broadcasts, it will respond to ypbind, which will record the server's address. If there are several servers available, the client will use the address of the first server to respond and will direct all of its NIS requests to that server. The client will automatically ping the server on a regular basis to make sure it is still available. If it fails to receive a reply within a reasonable amount of time, ypbind will mark the domain as unbound and begin broadcasting again in the hopes of locating another server.
To configure a FreeBSD machine to be an NIS client:
Edit
/etc/rc.confand add the following lines in order to set the NIS domain name and start ypbind(8) during network startup:nisdomainname="test-domain" nis_client_enable="YES"
To import all possible password entries from the NIS server, use
vipwto remove all user accounts except one from/etc/master.passwd. When removing the accounts, keep in mind that at least one local account should remain and this account should be a member ofwheel. If there is a problem with NIS, this local account can be used to log in remotely, become the superuser, and fix the problem. Before saving the edits, add the following line to the end of the file:+:::::::::
This line configures the client to provide anyone with a valid account in the NIS server's password maps an account on the client. There are many ways to configure the NIS client by modifying this line. One method is described in Section 29.4.8, “Using Netgroups”. For more detailed reading, refer to the book
Managing NFS and NIS, published by O'Reilly Media.To import all possible group entries from the NIS server, add this line to
/etc/group:+:*::
To start the NIS client immediately, execute the following commands as the superuser:
#/etc/netstart#service ypbind start
After completing these steps, running
ypcat passwd on the client should show
the server's passwd map.
Since RPC is a broadcast-based service,
any system running ypbind within
the same domain can retrieve the contents of the
NIS maps. To prevent unauthorized
transactions, ypserv(8) supports a feature called
“securenets” which can be used to restrict access
to a given set of hosts. By default, this information is
stored in /var/yp/securenets, unless
ypserv(8) is started with -p and an
alternate path. This file contains entries that consist of a
network specification and a network mask separated by white
space. Lines starting with # are
considered to be comments. A sample
securenets might look like this:
# allow connections from local host -- mandatory 127.0.0.1 255.255.255.255 # allow connections from any host # on the 192.168.128.0 network 192.168.128.0 255.255.255.0 # allow connections from any host # between 10.0.0.0 to 10.0.15.255 # this includes the machines in the testlab 10.0.0.0 255.255.240.0
If ypserv(8) receives a request from an address that
matches one of these rules, it will process the request
normally. If the address fails to match a rule, the request
will be ignored and a warning message will be logged. If the
securenets does not exist,
ypserv will allow connections from any
host.
Section 13.4, “TCP Wrapper” is an alternate mechanism
for providing access control instead of
securenets. While either access control
mechanism adds some security, they are both vulnerable to
“IP spoofing” attacks. All
NIS-related traffic should be blocked at
the firewall.
Servers using securenets
may fail to serve legitimate NIS clients
with archaic TCP/IP implementations. Some of these
implementations set all host bits to zero when doing
broadcasts or fail to observe the subnet mask when
calculating the broadcast address. While some of these
problems can be fixed by changing the client configuration,
other problems may force the retirement of these client
systems or the abandonment of
securenets.
The use of TCP Wrapper increases the latency of the NIS server. The additional delay may be long enough to cause timeouts in client programs, especially in busy networks with slow NIS servers. If one or more clients suffer from latency, convert those clients into NIS slave servers and force them to bind to themselves.
In this example, the basie
system is a faculty workstation within the
NIS domain. The
passwd map on the master
NIS server contains accounts for both
faculty and students. This section demonstrates how to
allow faculty logins on this system while refusing student
logins.
To prevent specified users from logging on to a system,
even if they are present in the NIS
database, use vipw to add
- with
the correct number of colons towards the end of
username/etc/master.passwd on the client,
where username is the username of
a user to bar from logging in. The line with the blocked
user must be before the + line that
allows NIS users. In this example,
bill is barred
from logging on to basie:
basie#cat /etc/master.passwdroot:[password]:0:0::0:0:The super-user:/root:/bin/csh toor:[password]:0:0::0:0:The other super-user:/root:/bin/sh daemon:*:1:1::0:0:Owner of many system processes:/root:/sbin/nologin operator:*:2:5::0:0:System &:/:/sbin/nologin bin:*:3:7::0:0:Binaries Commands and Source,,,:/:/sbin/nologin tty:*:4:65533::0:0:Tty Sandbox:/:/sbin/nologin kmem:*:5:65533::0:0:KMem Sandbox:/:/sbin/nologin games:*:7:13::0:0:Games pseudo-user:/usr/games:/sbin/nologin news:*:8:8::0:0:News Subsystem:/:/sbin/nologin man:*:9:9::0:0:Mister Man Pages:/usr/share/man:/sbin/nologin bind:*:53:53::0:0:Bind Sandbox:/:/sbin/nologin uucp:*:66:66::0:0:UUCP pseudo-user:/var/spool/uucppublic:/usr/libexec/uucp/uucico xten:*:67:67::0:0:X-10 daemon:/usr/local/xten:/sbin/nologin pop:*:68:6::0:0:Post Office Owner:/nonexistent:/sbin/nologin nobody:*:65534:65534::0:0:Unprivileged user:/nonexistent:/sbin/nologin -bill::::::::: +::::::::: basie#
Barring specified users from logging on to individual systems becomes unscaleable on larger networks and quickly loses the main benefit of NIS: centralized administration.
Netgroups were developed to handle large, complex networks with hundreds of users and machines. Their use is comparable to UNIX® groups, where the main difference is the lack of a numeric ID and the ability to define a netgroup by including both user accounts and other netgroups.
To expand on the example used in this chapter, the NIS domain will be extended to add the users and systems shown in Tables 28.2 and 28.3:
| User Name(s) | Description |
|---|---|
alpha,
beta | IT department employees |
charlie, delta | IT department apprentices |
echo,
foxtrott,
golf,
... | employees |
able,
baker,
... | interns |
| Machine Name(s) | Description |
|---|---|
war,
death,
famine,
pollution | Only IT employees are allowed to log onto these servers. |
pride,
greed,
envy,
wrath,
lust,
sloth | All members of the IT department are allowed to login onto these servers. |
one,
two,
three,
four,
... | Ordinary workstations used by employees. |
trashcan | A very old machine without any critical data. Even interns are allowed to use this system. |
When using netgroups to configure this scenario, each user is assigned to one or more netgroups and logins are then allowed or forbidden for all members of the netgroup. When adding a new machine, login restrictions must be defined for all netgroups. When a new user is added, the account must be added to one or more netgroups. If the NIS setup is planned carefully, only one central configuration file needs modification to grant or deny access to machines.
The first step is the initialization of the
NIS netgroup map. In
FreeBSD, this map is not created by default. On the
NIS master server, use an editor to create
a map named /var/yp/netgroup.
This example creates four netgroups to represent IT employees, IT apprentices, employees, and interns:
IT_EMP (,alpha,test-domain) (,beta,test-domain)
IT_APP (,charlie,test-domain) (,delta,test-domain)
USERS (,echo,test-domain) (,foxtrott,test-domain) \
(,golf,test-domain)
INTERNS (,able,test-domain) (,baker,test-domain)Each entry configures a netgroup. The first column in an entry is the name of the netgroup. Each set of brackets represents either a group of one or more users or the name of another netgroup. When specifying a user, the three comma-delimited fields inside each group represent:
The name of the host(s) where the other fields representing the user are valid. If a hostname is not specified, the entry is valid on all hosts.
The name of the account that belongs to this netgroup.
The NIS domain for the account. Accounts may be imported from other NIS domains into a netgroup.
If a group contains multiple users, separate each user with whitespace. Additionally, each field may contain wildcards. See netgroup(5) for details.
Netgroup names longer than 8 characters should not be used. The names are case sensitive and using capital letters for netgroup names is an easy way to distinguish between user, machine and netgroup names.
Some non-FreeBSD NIS clients cannot handle netgroups containing more than 15 entries. This limit may be circumvented by creating several sub-netgroups with 15 users or fewer and a real netgroup consisting of the sub-netgroups, as seen in this example:
BIGGRP1 (,joe1,domain) (,joe2,domain) (,joe3,domain) [...] BIGGRP2 (,joe16,domain) (,joe17,domain) [...] BIGGRP3 (,joe31,domain) (,joe32,domain) BIGGROUP BIGGRP1 BIGGRP2 BIGGRP3
Repeat this process if more than 225 (15 times 15) users exist within a single netgroup.
To activate and distribute the new NIS map:
ellington#cd /var/ypellington#make
This will generate the three NIS maps
netgroup,
netgroup.byhost and
netgroup.byuser. Use the map key option
of ypcat(1) to check if the new NIS
maps are available:
ellington%ypcat -k netgroupellington%ypcat -k netgroup.byhostellington%ypcat -k netgroup.byuser
The output of the first command should resemble the
contents of /var/yp/netgroup. The second
command only produces output if host-specific netgroups were
created. The third command is used to get the list of
netgroups for a user.
To configure a client, use vipw(8) to specify the
name of the netgroup. For example, on the server named
war, replace this line:
+:::::::::
with
+@IT_EMP:::::::::
This specifies that only the users defined in the netgroup
IT_EMP will be imported into this system's
password database and only those users are allowed to login to
this system.
This configuration also applies to the
~ function of the shell and all routines
which convert between user names and numerical user IDs. In
other words,
cd ~ will
not work, userls -l will show the numerical ID
instead of the username, and find . -user joe
-print will fail with the message
No such user. To fix this, import all
user entries without allowing them to login into the servers.
This can be achieved by adding an extra line:
+:::::::::/sbin/nologin
This line configures the client to import all entries but
to replace the shell in those entries with
/sbin/nologin.
Make sure that extra line is placed
after
+@IT_EMP:::::::::. Otherwise, all user
accounts imported from NIS will have
/sbin/nologin as their login
shell and no one will be able to login to the system.
To configure the less important servers, replace the old
+::::::::: on the servers with these
lines:
+@IT_EMP::::::::: +@IT_APP::::::::: +:::::::::/sbin/nologin
The corresponding lines for the workstations would be:
+@IT_EMP::::::::: +@USERS::::::::: +:::::::::/sbin/nologin
NIS supports the creation of netgroups from other
netgroups which can be useful if the policy regarding user
access changes. One possibility is the creation of role-based
netgroups. For example, one might create a netgroup called
BIGSRV to define the login restrictions for
the important servers, another netgroup called
SMALLSRV for the less important servers,
and a third netgroup called USERBOX for the
workstations. Each of these netgroups contains the netgroups
that are allowed to login onto these machines. The new
entries for the NIS
netgroup map would look like this:
BIGSRV IT_EMP IT_APP SMALLSRV IT_EMP IT_APP ITINTERN USERBOX IT_EMP ITINTERN USERS
This method of defining login restrictions works reasonably well when it is possible to define groups of machines with identical restrictions. Unfortunately, this is the exception and not the rule. Most of the time, the ability to define login restrictions on a per-machine basis is required.
Machine-specific netgroup definitions are another
possibility to deal with the policy changes. In this
scenario, the /etc/master.passwd of each
system contains two lines starting with “+”.
The first line adds a netgroup with the accounts allowed to
login onto this machine and the second line adds all other
accounts with /sbin/nologin as shell. It
is recommended to use the “ALL-CAPS” version of
the hostname as the name of the netgroup:
+@BOXNAME:::::::::
+:::::::::/sbin/nologinOnce this task is completed on all the machines, there is
no longer a need to modify the local versions of
/etc/master.passwd ever again. All
further changes can be handled by modifying the
NIS map. Here is an example of a possible
netgroup map for this scenario:
# Define groups of users first IT_EMP (,alpha,test-domain) (,beta,test-domain) IT_APP (,charlie,test-domain) (,delta,test-domain) DEPT1 (,echo,test-domain) (,foxtrott,test-domain) DEPT2 (,golf,test-domain) (,hotel,test-domain) DEPT3 (,india,test-domain) (,juliet,test-domain) ITINTERN (,kilo,test-domain) (,lima,test-domain) D_INTERNS (,able,test-domain) (,baker,test-domain) # # Now, define some groups based on roles USERS DEPT1 DEPT2 DEPT3 BIGSRV IT_EMP IT_APP SMALLSRV IT_EMP IT_APP ITINTERN USERBOX IT_EMP ITINTERN USERS # # And a groups for a special tasks # Allow echo and golf to access our anti-virus-machine SECURITY IT_EMP (,echo,test-domain) (,golf,test-domain) # # machine-based netgroups # Our main servers WAR BIGSRV FAMINE BIGSRV # User india needs access to this server POLLUTION BIGSRV (,india,test-domain) # # This one is really important and needs more access restrictions DEATH IT_EMP # # The anti-virus-machine mentioned above ONE SECURITY # # Restrict a machine to a single user TWO (,hotel,test-domain) # [...more groups to follow]
It may not always be advisable to use machine-based netgroups. When deploying a couple of dozen or hundreds of systems, role-based netgroups instead of machine-based netgroups may be used to keep the size of the NIS map within reasonable limits.
NIS requires that all hosts within an NIS domain use the same format for encrypting passwords. If users have trouble authenticating on an NIS client, it may be due to a differing password format. In a heterogeneous network, the format must be supported by all operating systems, where DES is the lowest common standard.
To check which format a server or client is using, look
at this section of
/etc/login.conf:
default:\ :passwd_format=des:\ :copyright=/etc/COPYRIGHT:\ [Further entries elided]
In this example, the system is using the
DES format. Other possible values are
blf for Blowfish and md5
for MD5 encrypted passwords.
If the format on a host needs to be edited to match the one being used in the NIS domain, the login capability database must be rebuilt after saving the change:
#cap_mkdb /etc/login.conf
Note:
The format of passwords for existing user accounts will not be updated until each user changes their password after the login capability database is rebuilt.