NIS problems with HP-UX 11.00

[Joshua Weage]

I've been having two different problems with HP-UX 11.00.

First, the NIS clients refuse to bind to the master server when booting. If our slave server is disabled, the machines will not get past nis client startup. After booting, they can be bound to the master using ypset. 10.20 clients bind to the master when booting.

Second, the machines are taking 10-15 minutes to get past the nis client startup. This started fairly recently.

I've enabled the log file on the nis servers, but the only thing that is written to it is the shutdown message.

HP support in the UK (where I am temporarily) couldn't offer any suggestions as to why this is happening.

[Ravi_8]

Hi,
two ways to diagonise this problem.
let's know whether your NIS slave, server and client machine are all in same subnet or not.
If they are in same subnet have you set domain name? on the client and slave server, if they are in different subnet, let me know , so that i can send you the procedure.

your systems taking 10-15 mins to overcome nis client is because systems not able to bind to nis server . set the flag NIS_CLIENT =0 in /etc/rc.config.d/namesvrs abd boot. systems doesn't wait for nis client to come up.

[Frank Li]

do nis client and nis master server belong to the same (ip)network ?
If not , you'd better set "ypset" in the /etc/rc.config.d/namesvrs
and bind to the master server explicitly . and also add the master servername/ip in the /etc/hosts file

Frank.

[Joshua Weage]

More information:

Both NIS servers and the clients are in the same subnet. Actually, the NIS servers are x.x.27.1 and x.x.27.3.

I have a suspicion that the long boot time may be a network issue. 15 minutes ago I rebooted two machines, and they came up quick. I've just tried it again and they are taking a long time at the nis client startup. When the machines eventually came up, it is bound to the slave server.

Unfortunately, the network is not under my control.

I've added in both the master and slave NIS server into /etc/hosts, it didn't make a difference. They are still bound to the slave after booting.

[Ravi_8]

Hi,
we have the similar setup as explained by you, we are not facing such problems, when rebooted some machines will bind to slave and some to master server. anyway can you check your DNS resolver(sam-->network & commu-->DNS-->DNS resolver) is correct.

[Joshua Weage]

I've got the same setup at another site too. The clients boot fine and will bind to both master and slave servers.

But here they won't bind to the master on boot. I'm tempted to blame the network, but it seems strange.

Thanks for the suggestions anyway.

[Shannon Petry]

Another thing to peek at is that the broadcast address on all the machines is the same! If different, then when a client yells a broadcast for a server, only the server on the same subnet can answer.

Solution: Use ypset option in /etc/rc.config.d/namesvrs to bind to a specific server, or put all NIS Server/Clients on the same subnet!

NOTE: Some switches don't pass broadcasts to all ports, or have filtering enabled to remove broadcasts. This might be the problem as well.

Regards,
Shannon