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Greg,
I went through the same thing
about 7 months ago. There is a NIS HOWTO at http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/NIS-HOWTO/index.html,
but if you follow it exactly it won't work. What you have to do is:
1. Since you want all users to have their home directories on
the server, you will need to put its /home directory on a separate partition so
that it can be mounted as rw. Give yourself plenty room. For about 50 casual
users I have 500meg, and I'm thinking that may fill up after a
while.
After creating the partition and copying
any previously existing files from old home directories into it, you will need
to make sure that it is exported as rw to all clients on your network. I have it
in /etc/exports as rw, insecure to *.easton.edu. (easton.edu is a fake internal
domain name used on the classroom network, specifically in the /etc/hosts file
-- not to be confused with the fake NIS domain name below.)
2. On each client, set /etc/fstab to automatically mount /home to the
server's /home partition as rw. 3. Install ypbind and yptools on your server. I use Redhat so
they come on an RPM, but yours may be in a tar file.
4. Decide on an internal NIS domain name for your network (not
necessarily the same as in step 1 -- just make up any old thing). Then from the
command prompt go to /usr/lib/yp. When there type the command "./ypinit
-m" (if you are only using a master server -- email me back if you are
using a slave too), including the period. Give it the network name of your
server and the made-up internal NIS domain name, follow the onscreen
instructions, and accept the rest of the defaults.
5. For this part, you _DO_ follow the NIS HOWTO. As you add
users, you will have to edit the passwd file on the server using a text editor.
You just move NIS users past the middle of the passwd file as described in the
HOWTO.
6. Each time you are completely finished adding or deleting
users, go back to /usr/lib/yp and run "./pwupdate". Or you could set
up a launcher in xwindows to do it with a single click.
7. On each client, you need to identify the
made-up domain name and the NIS server. On redhat you can go into NIS settings
through Linuxconf; I'm not sure about other distros.
8. If you have a central printer on the server, I don't
remember if you have to run /usr/lib/yp/create_printcap. It wouldn't hurt to
try. Regardless, in order to access the print server via NIS, it needs to have
an /etc/hosts.lpd file. All this has to contain is the IP numbers of every
machine on your network that is authorized to print to the server, such as
192.168.0.10
192.168.0.11
and so on.
Another suggestion: if your
network connects to the Internet, make the connection through a router such as
FREESCO. This makes machines inside the network invisible to anything on the
outside and considerably enhances security.
It took
me weeks to figure this out, but it's really not too hard after the first time.
Hope it helps.
Dave Prentice
prentice@instruction.com
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