SUMMARY: NIS does not suppot password aging

From: V.Sander (zdv123@zam092.zam.kfa-juelich.de)
Date: Wed May 26 1993 - 09:05:27 CDT


Many thanks to all those who responded about my query.
My original mail was,

----- Begin Included Message -----

Hallo,
we had a problem with NIS running on SUN OS 4.1.2 or 4.1.3.
We used an alternate NIS-passwd-File to prevent root's password from being
guessed via simple ypcat commands from the whole world.
Problems arises when you want to use normal features like password expiration.

First, you are not able to use commands like
       passwd -e username
       passwd -x username
on the NIS server, because those commands just looks in the local /etc/passwd
file (Why?????)

Using passwd -Fnis_maintained_pw_file -e username and a make
works fine. The password of the user is expired. But when he tries to login
and typing in the new password, he gets the error message:
        Error from nis-server: Password incorrect
That means, the user is not able to login anymore.

Talking with SUN results in the message of the SUBJECT:
        NIS does not support Password-Aging

Sounds like SUN doesn't want to sell large UNIX-Systems/Cluster.

----- End Included Message -----

The solution seems to be using NIS+ distributed with Sol 2.x in combatibility
mode und Sol 1.X. This will support password aging.

Volker Sander,
Central Institute for Applied Mathematics,
Reserach Center Juelich (KFA)
Germany



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