nisclient(1M)

DESCRIPTION

The nisclient shell script can be used to:

NIS+ credentials are used to provide authentication information of NIS+ clients to NIS+ service.

Use the first synopsis (-c) to create individual NIS+ credentials for hosts or users. You must be logged in as a NIS+ principal in the domain for which you are creating the new credentials. You must also have write permission to the local "cred" table. The client_name argument accepts any valid host or user name in the NIS+ domain (for example, the client_name must exist in the hosts or passwd table). nisclient verifies each client_name against both the hosts and passwd tables, then adds the proper NIS+ credentials for hosts or users. Note that if you are creating NIS+ credentials outside of your local domain, the host or user must exist in the hosts or passwd tables in both the local and remote domains.

By default, nisclient will not overwrite existing entries in the credential table for the hosts and users specified. To overwrite, use the -o option. After the credentials have been created, nisclient will print the command that must be executed on the client machine to initialize the host or the user. The -c option requires a network password for the client which is used to encrypt the secret key for the client. You can either specify it on the command line with the -l option or the script will prompt you for it. You can change this network password later with nispasswd(1) or chkey(1).

nisclient -c is not intended to be used to create NIS+ credentials for all users and hosts that are defined in the passwd and hosts tables. To define credentials for all users and hosts, use nispopulate(1M).

Use the second synopsis (-i) to initialize a NIS+ client machine. -i The option can be used to convert machines to use NIS+ or to change the machine's domainname. You must be logged in as superuser on the machine that is to become a NIS+ client. Your administrator must have already created the NIS+ credential for this host by using nisclient -c or nispopulate -C. You will need the network password your administrator created. nisclient will prompt you for the network password to decrypt your secret key and then for this machine's root login password to generate a new set of secret/public keys. If the NIS+ credential was created by your administrator using nisclient -c, then you can simply use the initialization command that was printed by the nisclient script to initialize this host instead of typing it manually.

To initialize an unauthenticated NIS+ client machine, use the -i option with the -S 0. With these options, the nisclient -i option will not ask for any passwords.

During the client initialization process, files that are being modified are backed up as files.no_nisplus. The files that are usually modified during a client initialization are: /etc/rc.config.d/namesvrs, /etc/nsswitch.conf, /etc/hosts, and, if it exists, /var/nis/NIS_COLD_START. Note that a file will not be saved if a backup file already exists.

The -i option does not set up an NIS+ client to resolve hostnames using DNS. Please refer to the DNS documentation for information on setting up DNS. (See resolver(4)).

Use the third synopsis (-u) to initialize a NIS+ user. You must be logged in as the user on a NIS+ client machine in the domain where your NIS+ credentials have been created. Your administrator should have already created the NIS+ credential for your username using nisclient -c or nispopulate(1M). You will need the network password your administrator used to create the NIS+ credential for your username. nisclient will prompt you for this network password to decrypt your secret key and then for your login password to generate a new set of secret/public keys.

Use the fourth synopsis (-r) to restore the network service environment to whatever you were using before nisclient -i was executed. You must be logged in as superuser on the machine that is to be restored. The restore will only work if the machine was initialized with nisclient -i because it uses the backup files created by the -i option.

Reboot the machine after initializing a machine or restoring the network service.

EXAMPLES

To add the DES credential for host hpws and user fred in the local domain:

To add the DES credential for host hpws and user fred in domain xyz.hp.com.:

To initialize host hpws as an NIS+ client in domain xyz.hp.com. where nisplus_server is a server for the domain xyz.hp.com.:

The script will prompt you for the IP address of nisplus_server if the server is not found in the /etc/hosts file. The -d option is needed only if your current domain name is different from the new domain name.

To initialize host hpws as an unauthenticated NIS+ client in domain xyz.hp.com. where nisplus_server is a server for the domain xyz.hp.com.:

To initialize user fred as an NIS+ principal, log in as user fred on an NIS+ client machine.

FILES

WARNINGS

HP-UX 11i Version 2 is the last HP-UX release on which NIS+ is supported.

LDAP is the recommended replacement for NIS+. HP fully supports the industry standard naming services based on LDAP.

AUTHOR

nisclient was developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc.

SEE ALSO

chkey(1), keylogin(1), nis+(1), nispasswd(1), keyserv(1M), nisaddcred(1M), nisinit(1M), nispopulate(1M), nsswitch.conf(4), resolver(4).