This implementation of yp for linux is based on the yp-patches for
NetBSD from Theo Deraadt and an independend port of Hlu. 

This implementation only provides NIS _clients_. You must already have
a NIS server running somewhere.

The binary of yppasswd is not included, it caused our yppasswdd on a Sun to
hang.


How to set up your system as a NIS client:

1. Set your NIS domain with domainname at boottime.

Example:
if [ -x /etc/defaultdomain ] ; then
	domainname `cat /etc/defaultdomain`
fi
You should create the file /etc/defaultdomain with the command
	echo -n your_domain_name > /etc/defaultdomain
Old versions of the domainname program could not deal with a \n at the
end of /etc/defaultdomain and made it part of the domainname. This is
fixed in this version. 

Please do _not_ confuse the NIS domainname (set with the domainname
command, which uses setdomainname()) with the DNS domain name (set in
/etc/resolv.conf). Some distributions falsely assume these are the
same. This is wrong.

2. Find a NIS server. 
Here you have 2 possibilities. If your NIS server is in your local
net, you can simply start ypbind. It will use broadcast to find a
servers. You can check for a NIS server with the command
	rpcinfo -b 100007 2

Starting with this release, you can enter the name of your NIS server
to the file /etc/yp.conf. If /etc/yp.conf exists when ypbind is
started, it will search it for lines formed like
	ypserver <Name_of_ypserver>
ypbind then tests if the given servers are up and serve the NIS
domain. If one of the servers responds, it will use it for all further
NIS requests, else it will fallback to broadcast. This gives you the
possibility to use a server behind a gateway. 

3. Start ypbind
The recommended way of starting ypbind is as follows:

if [ -d /var/yp ] ; then
	/usr/sbin/ypbind ;	echo ypbind
fi

Be sure to set the domainname before calling ypbind and to append
+:*:0:0:::
to /etc/passwd, and
+:*:0:
to /etc/group.

Don't forget to create the directory /var/yp.
Make sure the portmapper is running before ypbind gets startd.

You can use NIS for your host map by adding nis to /etc/host.conf.
Example:

order hosts nis bind
multi on

This will look into /etc/hosts first, then ask nis and then the domain
name server.

Feel free to correct any errors in the programs or documentation
(including spelling and grammar!)

Comments, corrections, enhancements, patches, praise, money etc. to 
swen@uni-paderborn.de, flames to /dev/null