NIS And /home Dirs On Client Systems

[Hal Vaughan <hal@thresholddigital.com>]

I noticed, a few years ago, when I first set up an NIS server, that even 
though the NIS clients get the full password files, that doesn't mean home 
directories are automatically created for that user.  I wrote my own Perl 
util that reads the passwd file with 'ypcat passwd', then gets the names, 
makes the home dirs, and chowns them.

Now, while setting up new systems, I'm wondering: Is this a flaw in NIS, or 
what?  How do others handle it?  Is there something else to handle this I 
don't know about?

Just curious...


Hal