nis authentication problem (Debian 3.0)

[Matthew Adams <madams@phantomware.ca>]

Hello,

Thanks for writing the nis.debian.howto - it's been of great use to me.
However I seem to be having a little problem with NIS and am hoping
you might be able to help, if it isn't a bother.

I've set up an NIS server and client as per your howto (3.9-3)
using Debian 3.0.  Everything *appears* to be working, i.e. I can
finger NIS users from the NIS client properly and the NIS uid to name
mappings appear to be working fine through my NFS exports.

However, I have two problems:

First, and most importantly I cannot seem to login from the NIS client
using a username exported via the NIS directory.  On the NIS client
I get this entry in my auth log when I try to login:

zaphod PAM_unix[491]: check pass; user unknown
zaphod PAM_unix[491]: authentication failure; root(uid=0) -> madams for
login service
zaphod login[491]: FAILED LOGIN (1) on `pts/3' FOR 'madams',
Authentication service cannot retrieve authentication info.

Secondly, and I believe this to be an extension of the first problem,
I get this wierd error when I su via root to a user on the NIS client:

zaphod:/etc# su madams
su: Authentication service cannot retrieve authentication info.
(Ignored)
bash $

The su appears to be otherwise sucessful.

Any suggestions or comments you might have would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks in advance,

Matt