Solaris help ?

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seyre1972

2,646 posts

144 months

Monday 5th June 2017
quotequote all
J4CK0/GavsDavs,

Just be mindful that until you come up with a replacement for the NIS server - you're relying upon the cached credentials on the running client.

Is there anyway you can salvage/recover the NIS Masters maps/source ? Or is it for the scrap heap ? Is it the disk that failed, or the h/w itself ? If the disk is fine can you not add it to another Solaris server and recover that way ?

Maybe post up what the long term plan is (either recovering NIS, or migration to another service (AD for example)

Is the NIS client a Prod server ? What impact is it if the running server reboots/loses the cached credentials ?

As maybe ad interim either recreate NIS master, or create/add local users/groups/passwds (you could then leave nsswitch.conf alone as the files nis order is fine.





J4CKO

Original Poster:

41,636 posts

201 months

Monday 5th June 2017
quotequote all
gavsdavs said:
J4CKO said:
The server isnt available, this is just on the client.

Also, ls seems to hang my session if I have the e parameter in

Cheers for your assistance !
Oh - so if the server has gone for ever, just remove the nis entries from nsswitch,conf from the relevant maps.

If the server is still there, and staying, then the client isn't bound, and is trying to

What operating system is this nis client ?

Is the server there, or gone and not coming back ?
Servers were inherited, 2 * Solaris servers running VM Zones.

The NIS Server was removed as it was listed as a scratch/dev server used by someone who had left, was part of an aquisition and we got lumbered with it, mainly windows shop, we have Linux folk but not are experienced with this.

It has a twin with the same set up, the etc passwd, hosts etc look the same but no YPBIND running



gavsdavs

1,203 posts

127 months

Monday 5th June 2017
quotequote all
J4CKO said:
gavsdavs said:
J4CKO said:
The server isnt available, this is just on the client.

Also, ls seems to hang my session if I have the e parameter in

Cheers for your assistance !
Oh - so if the server has gone for ever, just remove the nis entries from nsswitch,conf from the relevant maps.

If the server is still there, and staying, then the client isn't bound, and is trying to

What operating system is this nis client ?

Is the server there, or gone and not coming back ?
Servers were inherited, 2 * Solaris servers running VM Zones.

The NIS Server was removed as it was listed as a scratch/dev server used by someone who had left, was part of an aquisition and we got lumbered with it, mainly windows shop, we have Linux folk but not are experienced with this.

It has a twin with the same set up, the etc passwd, hosts etc look the same but no YPBIND running
This sounds like the NIS server is gone (as in it is dead, it is an ex-NIS-server, etc).

This machine with ypbind running is between two config approached - its being told (by nsswitch.conf) to look for things in nis, and ypbind is running, but the nis server has gone. To stop it trying to talk to nis, edit nsswitch.conf and remove the nis entries from the relevant lines. You can then kill and/or disable ypbind using svcadm disable nis/client.

If you have a partner machine which isn't running ypbind and is functioning fine, then maybe you can assume you don't need it.

If things aren't working, you need that NIS server back, because it was publishing things that this host is looking for.

When you say "The NIS server was removed" - do you mean NIS was uninstalled, the server turned off, etc).

What do these machines do for your organisation - was it a samba server/mail router/etc ?

I don't yet know what they were using NIS for - or how critical that was to your organisation


J4CKO

Original Poster:

41,636 posts

201 months

Monday 5th June 2017
quotequote all
The other server has the same nsswitch.conf file, same entries.

With the files and then NIS, in there, that is the order of precedence, i.e. it checks int he files first then NIS, so if it cant resolve from a local file, then it tries NIS ?


gavsdavs

1,203 posts

127 months

Monday 5th June 2017
quotequote all
J4CKO said:
The other server has the same nsswitch.conf file, same entries.

With the files and then NIS, in there, that is the order of precedence, i.e. it checks int he files first then NIS, so if it cant resolve from a local file, then it tries NIS ?
Correct.

Say you have 30 entries in /etc/passwd, it finds those first, then goes to nis and looks for the passwd map for any extra, 'network' identities.

If the other server has the nis entries in nsswitch.conf but doesn't have a running ypbind, then it's going to behave better as it gets an immediate "not available" from the lack of a ypbind process. (and doesn't get the hang-up effect you're seeing)

What do theese machines need NIS for ? What do they do ?

J4CKO

Original Poster:

41,636 posts

201 months

Tuesday 6th June 2017
quotequote all
gavsdavs said:
J4CKO said:
The other server has the same nsswitch.conf file, same entries.

With the files and then NIS, in there, that is the order of precedence, i.e. it checks int he files first then NIS, so if it cant resolve from a local file, then it tries NIS ?
Correct.

Say you have 30 entries in /etc/passwd, it finds those first, then goes to nis and looks for the passwd map for any extra, 'network' identities.

If the other server has the nis entries in nsswitch.conf but doesn't have a running ypbind, then it's going to behave better as it gets an immediate "not available" from the lack of a ypbind process. (and doesn't get the hang-up effect you're seeing)

What do theese machines need NIS for ? What do they do ?
Lost in the mists of time and the fact the guys who built the environment are long gone, however, have traced the key one, he works for the sister of a current manager at our place so have forwarded some questions to him, via her.

We arent sure what their purpose was originally.




Edited by J4CKO on Tuesday 6th June 09:15

J4CKO

Original Poster:

41,636 posts

201 months

Tuesday 6th June 2017
quotequote all
seyre1972 said:
J4CK0/GavsDavs,

Just be mindful that until you come up with a replacement for the NIS server - you're relying upon the cached credentials on the running client.

Is there anyway you can salvage/recover the NIS Masters maps/source ? Or is it for the scrap heap ? Is it the disk that failed, or the h/w itself ? If the disk is fine can you not add it to another Solaris server and recover that way ?

Maybe post up what the long term plan is (either recovering NIS, or migration to another service (AD for example)

Is the NIS client a Prod server ? What impact is it if the running server reboots/loses the cached credentials ?

As maybe ad interim either recreate NIS master, or create/add local users/groups/passwds (you could then leave nsswitch.conf alone as the files nis order is fine.
The two Solaris servers host virtual machines with a variety of stuff on, hence the concern.

The NIS server was, I believe also Solaris but was a virtual machine and was deleted as it was thought it was not needed during a clean up.

Long term plan is to stabilise then migrate later operating systems.




gavsdavs

1,203 posts

127 months

Tuesday 6th June 2017
quotequote all
My confusion is that you don't appear to know (or want to say, which is understandable), what these machines (the remaining servers - the nis clients) do, and or if you know why they depend on the NIS server and what maps they're trying to enumerate. "I don't know what's not working".

Basically if they are looking for some data, you can put the data (if you know what it is/was), in the local files (passwd/group/shadow/user_attr/prof_attr/exec_attr/aliases and so on) and the machines will use the data from "files" and not need to go to NIS.

This creates a maintenance problem for you as each machine has to be kept in sync - the whole purpose of using a network naming service.

PM me if you don't want to share publically - you need to work out what your NIS clients depended on the NIS server for - what the data was, and restore if to local files if you aren't going to be able to bring the NIS server back.

This looks useful for you
http://www.basicallytech.com/blog/archive/95/Solar...

There's nothing wrong with solaris, but NIS is pretty ancient and you might well be able to provide the same naming service using samba or ldap.

J4CKO

Original Poster:

41,636 posts

201 months

Wednesday 14th June 2017
quotequote all
Guys, stopped NIS tonight after much debate and research, backups seem to be working ok again and the failing commands like "ps -ef" now complete without hanging the session.

So, hopefully we will finally have some valid OS backups and a working machine.

We have also ordered the three disks that have failed in the NAS it sits on, talk about sailing close to the wind fss.

Cheers for all your help !

Quite fancy being a Linux admin, I like working with NIX operating systems, seems so pure after windows.