Bug in YP password handling

[Henry B.J. Krempel]

Frank W. Peters <peters at csserver.cs.msstate.edu>:
>Hmmm...we are having a strange problem with a 3/160 running SunOS 4.0.

>YP documentation indicates that YP does NOT keep its own copy of the
>/etc/passwd file.

>>Yet...we recently have had trouble with users attempting to change their
>passwords.  They change it and all goes well...but when they attempt to
>log in later...their password is still the OLD password... 

The documentation must be wrong,  we have a separate passwd file.  You
have to do two things to maintain a separate passwd file for the YP:

-	change the Makefile for the YP (in 4.0 it's in /var/yp) so that
the passwd entries check that file,  I think in 4.0 all you have to do is
change the PASSWD symbol:

PASSWD=/etc/passwd.yp


-	run yppasswdd with the appropriate arguments

/usr/etc/rpc.yppasswdd /etc/passwd.yp -m passwd DIR=/etc PASSWD=/etc/passwd.yp

Also,  make sure your users are running "yppasswd" to change their
password.  I did this by linking "passwd" to "yppasswd" in /usr/ucb.
Since this is before /bin on their paths,  it works,  and to use passwd,
I type: /bin/passwd ...

>From the behaviour you described,  it seems like you weren't running the
yppasswd daemon,  or you were using passwd to modify passwords. 

Also,  remember: it does take a little time to propagate.

Henry B. J. Krempel	<krempel at pacrat.npac.syr.edu>
Northeast Parallel Architectures Center (NPAC)
Syracuse University
250 Machinery Hall
Syracuse,  N.Y. 13244