chown strange issue

[joe_91]

This is what happens..
we use this command in a script..
echo "$hostname $user_id >> $Home_dir/.rhosts
chown $user_id:$user_group $Home_dir/.rhosts

the command works fine on /etc/passwd users but fails for NIS USERS (from /etc/passwd.yp)
"chown: unknown user id"

not sure what is happening? Pl direct me

Thanks

Joe

[Pete Randall]

Where and how does $user_id get set?


Pete

[Rick Garland]

Can NIS users login to this system?
Is this system running as a NIS client?

[Suraj Singh_1]

Where is this script called from? Is the script running with root privileges?

It is really dificult to figure out the exact cause of this problem with the details you have provided.

Pls. attached the script also.

Regards

[joe_91]

The problem is not with the script. the problem is with chown. it works on normal users but fails on NIS users. Have anyone faced this issue?

Thanks

Joe.

[Patrick Wallek]

Do you have the "+::0:0:::" in the /etc/passwd file on this machine? Do NIS users work for anything else?

[Tony Scully_2]

Patrick's question is key -- do NIS users work for anything else, eg can you su to one of the users, create a file etc.

Are you sure that $user_id IS getting set correctly? Have you tested at the command line?

Cheers,
Tony

[Devesh Pant_1]

Try using the echo $hostname and echo $user_group to see if you get a valid group

Do you have common uids/gids in the local /etc/passwd and the NIS passwd files ?

Devesh

[Ermin Borovac]

One possible culprit is pwgrd caching daemon, which has problems when NIS is in use. You may want to try restarting pwgrd to see if it fixes this problem.

[Oliver Stoklossa]

Maybe you could also check the settings in the /etc/nsswitch.conf

Had a similar issue long time ago because of strange settings in group and passwd section.

Regards
Oli