I received a single reply on this (quoted below) that led my attention
to the GCOS field in general; as it turned out, someone (else:-) had
added a few users with 8-bit characters in the GCOS field, which
definitely is a no-no, at least on SunOS 4.x systems. Changing all
occurrences of these solved the problem right away. This could be a
good reason to use the 'nogecos' option to yppasswdd as show below,
although this in itself was not the cause of the problem.
Thanks to Ed Miller <ed.j.miller1@jsc.nasa.gov> who wrote:
> hi,
> here is how we do it in the /etc/rc.local on sun os 4.1.4 server
> /usr/etc/rpc.yppasswdd /var/yp/src/passwd -nogecos -m passwd
> DIR=/var/yp; echo -n ' yppasswdd'
>
> you can find good explanation in section 3.4 of the sun-managers faq
> cheers,
>
> Ed Miller
--- Original posting ---
On Thu, 1 Oct 1998, Carsten B. Knudsen wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I am having a small (!?) problem with a yppasswdd running on our
> SunOS 4.1.3U1 NIS server. When logged on as root on the local machine
> and trying to change a user's NIS passwd, the following happens:
>
> # passwd jl
> Changing NIS password for jl on danbo.
> Old password:
> New password:
> Retype new password:
> RPC: Server can't decode arguments
> passwd couldn't change entry (rpc call failed)
>
> The really tricky thing is that this only happens with some users,
> while for other users, it works perfectly OK. I checked the master
> passwd file with 'pwck' and, except for some obsolete user accounts not
> having a home directory, it doesn't complain.
>
> The machine is an IPX running vanila 4.1.3_U1 rev B:
>
> # showrev
>
> *************** showrev version 1.17 *****************
> * Hostname: "sparc1"
> * Hostid: "57203127"
> * Kernel Arch: "sun4c"
> * Application Arch: "sun4"
> * Kernel Revision:
> 4.1.3_U1 (OSY_IPX) #3: Mon Sep 15 10:24:31 METDST 1997
> * Release: 4.1.3_U1 Version B
>
> Any hints or advice will be appreciated; I will summarize any replies.
>
> TIA
> /Carsten
---------------------------------------------------------------;-)-
Carsten B. Knudsen Email: cbk@terma.dk
TERMA Elektronik A/S Phone: +45 8622 2000
Hovmarken 4-6 Fax: +45 8622 2799
DK-8520 Lystrup, Denmark (@home: cbk@iname.com)
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