Setting Up a Nonroot Domain

Network Information Services (NIS and NIS+) Guide

Setting Up a Nonroot Domain

This section provides step-by-step instructions for using NIS+ commands to set up a nonroot domain (also known as a subdomain). You should not set up a nonroot domain until after you have set up servers.

A summary of this task is provided by Subdomain Setup Summary.

Note: It is much easier to perform this task with the NIS+ installation scripts than with the NIS+ command set as described here. The methods described in this section should be used only by those administrators who are very familiar with NIS+ and who require some nonstandard features or configurations not provided by the installation scripts.

See Configuration Worksheets for worksheets that you can use to plan your NIS+ namespace.

Setting up a nonroot domain involves the following tasks:

Establishing security for the domain
Creating the domain's directories
Creating the domain's tables
Designating the domain's servers

However, as with setting up the root domain, these tasks cannot be performed sequentially. To make the setup process easier to execute, they have been broken down into individual steps, and the steps have been arranged into the most efficient order.

Standard versus NIS-Compatible Setup Procedures

The differences between NIS-compatible and standard NIS+ servers in subdomains are the same as they are for servers in the root domain (see Standard versus NIS-Compatible Setup Procedures).

The NIS+ daemon for each server in an NIS-compatible domain should have been started with the -Y option, as instructed in Setting Up NIS+ Servers. An NIS-compatible domain also requires its tables to provide read rights for the nobody class, which allows NIS clients to access the information stored in them. NIS+ is made NIS compatible by using the -Y option with the nissetup command. (The standard NIS+ domain version uses the same setup command but without the -Y option.)

Here is a summary of the entire setup process:

Logging in to the domain's master server.
Naming the domain's administrative group.
Creating the domain's directory and designate its servers.
Creating the domain's subdirectories and tables.
Creating the domain's admin group.
Assigning full group access rights to the directory object.
Adding the servers to the domain's admin group.
Adding credentials for other administrators.
Adding the administrators to the domain's admin group.

Security Considerations

At most sites, to preserve the security of the parent domain, only the parent domain's master server or an administrator who belongs to the parent domain's admin group is allowed to create a domain beneath it. Although this is a policy decision and not a requirement of NIS+, the instructions in this section assume that you are following that policy. Of course, the parent domain's admin group must have create rights to the parent directory object. To verify this, use the niscat -o command.

rootmaster# niscat -o Wiz.Com.
Object Name   : wiz
Owner         : rootmaster
Group         : admin.wiz.com.
Access Rights : r---rmcdrmcdr---
:

If you are more concerned about convenience than security, you could simply make the new domain's master server a member of its parent domain's admin group and then perform the entire procedure from the server. Use the nisgrpadm command.

Prerequisites

The parent domain must be set up and running.
The server that will be designated as this domain's master must be initialized and running NIS+.
If you will designate a replica server, the master server must be able to obtain the replica's IP address through its /etc/hosts file or from its NIS+ hosts table.

You also need the following information:

The name of the new domain
The name of the new domain's master and replica servers
The name of the new domain's admin group
User IDs (UID) of the administrators who will belong to the new domain's admin group

Procedure

Log in to the domain's master server.
Log in to the server that you will designate as the new domain's master. The steps in this task use the server named smaster, which belongs to the Wiz.Com. domain, and will become the master server of the Sales.Wiz.Com. subdomain. The administrator performing this task is nisboss.Wiz.Com., a member of the admin.Wiz.Com. group. That group has full access rights to the Wiz.Com. directory object.
Name the domain's administrative group.
Although you won't actually create the admin group until later, you need to identify it now. This enables the nismkdir command used in the following step to create the directory object with the proper access rights for the group. It does the same for the nissetup utility.

Set the value of the environment variable NIS_GROUP to the name of the domain's admin group. The following example sets NIS_GROUP to admin.Sales.Wiz.Com.
```
smaster# NIS_GROUP=admin.Sales.Wiz.Com.
smaster# export NIS_GROUP
```
Create the domain's directory and designate its servers.
The nismkdir command, in one step, creates the new domain's directory and designates its supporting servers. It has the following syntax:
```
nismkdir -m master -s replica domain
```
The -m flag designates its master server, and the -s flag designates its replica.
```
smaster# nismkdir -m smaster -s salesreplica Sales.Wiz.Com.
```
Attention: Always run nismkdir on the master server. Never run nismkdir on the replica machine. Running nismkdir on a replica creates communications problems between the master and the replica.

The directory is loaded into /var/nis. Use the niscat -o command to view it (do not use cat or more).
```
smaster# niscat -o Sales.Wiz.Com.
Object Name   : sales
Owner         : nisboss.wiz.com.
Group         : admin.sales.wiz.com.
Access Rights : ----rmcdr---r---
.
.
.
```
Unlike the root directory, this directory object does have the proper group assignment. As a result, you won't have to use nischgrp.
Create the domain's subdirectories and tables.
This step adds the org_dir and groups_dir directories and the NIS+ tables beneath the new directory object. Use the nissetup utility, but be sure to add the new domain name. And, for an NIS-compatible domain, include the -Y flag.

NIS compatible:
```
smaster# /usr/lib/nis/nissetup -Y Sales.Wiz.Com. 
```
NIS+
```
smaster# /usr/lib/nis/nissetup   Sales.Wiz.Com.
```
Each object added by the utility is listed in the output:
```
smaster# /usr/lib/nis/nissetup
org_dir.Sales.Wiz.Com. created
groups_dir.Sales.Wiz.Com. created
auto_master.org_dir.Sales.Wiz.Com. created
auto_home.org_dir.Sales.Wiz.Com. created
bootparams.org_dir.Sales.Wiz.Com. created
cred.org_dir.Sales.Wiz.Com. created
ethers.org_dir.Sales.Wiz.Com. created
group.org_dir.Sales.Wiz.Com. created
hosts.org_dir.Sales.Wiz.Com. created
mail_aliases.org_dir.Sales.Wiz.Com. created
sendmailvars.org_dir.Sales.Wiz.Com. created
client_info.org.dir.Sales.Wiz.Com. created
netmasks.org_dir.Sales.Wiz.Com. created
netgroup.org_dir.Sales.Wiz.Com. created
networks.org_dir.Sales.Wiz.Com. created
passwd.org_dir.Sales.Wiz.Com. created
protocols.org_dir.Sales.Wiz.Com. created
rpc.org_dir.Sales.Wiz.Com. created
services.org_dir.Sales.Wiz.Com. created
timezone.org_dir.Sales.Wiz.Com. created
```
The -Y option creates the same tables and subdirectories as for a standard NIS+ domain, but assigns read rights to the nobody class so that requests from NIS clients, which are unauthenticated, can access information in the NIS+ tables.

You can verify the existence of the org_dir and groups_dir directories by looking in your master server's /var/nis/data directory. They are listed along with the root object and other NIS+ tables. The tables are listed under the org_dir directory. You can examine the contents of any table by using the niscat command (although at this point the tables are empty).
Create the domain's admin group.
This step creates the admin group named earlier. Use the nisgrpadm command with the -c option. This example creates the admin.Sales.Wiz.Com. group
```
smaster# nisgrpadm -c admin.Sales.Wiz.Com. 
Group admin.Sales.Wiz.Com. created.
```
This step only creates the group--it does not identify its members.
Assign full group access rights to the directory object.
By default, the directory object only grants its group read access, which makes the group no more useful than the world class. To make the setup of clients and subdomains easier, change the access rights that the directory object grants its group from read to read, modify, create, and destroy. Use the nischmod command.
```
smaster# nischmod g+rmcd Sales.Wiz.Com. 
```

Add the servers to the domain's admin group.

At this point, the domain's group has no members. Add the master and replica servers, using the nisgrpadm command with the -a option. The first argument is the group name; the others are the names of the new members. This example adds smaster.Wiz.Com. and salesreplica.Wiz.Com. to the admin.Sales.Wiz.Com. group:

smaster# nisgrpadm -a admin.Sales.Wiz.Com.   smaster.Wiz.Com. \
  salesreplica.Wiz.Com.
Added smaster.Wiz.Com. to group admin.Sales.Wiz.Com.
Added salesreplica.Wiz.Com. to group admin.Sales.Wiz.Com.

To verify that the servers are indeed members of the group, use the nisgrpadm command with the -l option.

smaster# nisgrpadm -l admin.Sales.Wiz.Com. 
Group entry for admin.Sales.Wiz.Com. group:
    Explicit members:
        smaster.Wiz.Com.
        salesreplica.Wiz.Com.
    No implicit members
    No recursive members
    No explicit nonmembers
    No implicit nonmembers
    No recursive nonmembers

Add credentials for other administrators.
Add the credentials of the other administrators who will work in the domain.

For administrators who already have DES credentials in another domain, simply add LOCAL credentials. Use the nisaddcred command with both the -p and the -P flags.
```
smaster# nisaddcred -p 33355 -P nisboss.Wiz.Com. local 
```
For administrators that do not yet have credentials, you can proceed in two different ways.
- One way is to ask them to add their own credentials. However, they will have to do this as superuser. Here is an example in which an administrator with a UID of 22244 and a principal name of juan.Sales.Wiz.Com. adds his own credentials to the Sales.Wiz.Com. domain.
```
smaster# nisaddcred -p 22244 -P juan.Sales.Wiz.Com. local
smaster# nisaddcred -p unix.22244@Sales.Wiz.Com -P juan.Sales.Wiz.Com. des
Adding key pair for unix.22244@Sales.Wiz.Com.
Enter login password:  
```
- The other way is for you to create temporary credentials for the other administrators, using dummy passwords (note that each administrator must have an entry in the NIS+ passwd table).
```
smaster# nisaddcred -p 22244 -P juan.Sales.Wiz.Com. local
smaster# nisaddcred -p unix.22244@Sales.Wiz.Com -P juan.Sales.Wiz.Com. des
Adding key pair for unix.22244@Sales.Wiz.Com.
Enter juan's login password: 

nisaddcred: WARNING: password differs from login passwd.
Retype password: 
```
Each administrator can later change his or her network password by using the chkey command.

Note: In the two examples shown above, the domain name following the lower case -p flag must never end in a trailing dot, while the domain name following the upper case -P flag must always end in a trailing dot.
Add the administrators to the domain's admin group.
You don't have to wait for the other administrators to change their dummy passwords to perform this step. Use the nisgrpadm command with the -a option. The first argument is the group name, and the remaining arguments are the names of the administrators. This example adds the administrator juan to the admin.Sales.Wiz.Com. group:
```
smaster# nisgrpadm -a admin.Sales.Wiz.Com. juan.Sales.Wiz.Com.
Added juan.Sales.Wiz.Com. to group admin.Sales.Wiz.Com.
```

Subdomain Setup Summary

The following table is a summary of the steps required to set up a non-root domain. It assumes the simplest case, so be sure you are familiar with the more thorough task descriptions before you use this summary as a reference. This summary does not show the server's responses to each command.

Setting Up a Subdomain Command Summary
Tasks	Commands
Log in as superuser to domain master.	smaster% su
Name the domain's admin group.	# NIS_GROUP=admin.Sales.Wiz.Com. # export NIS_GROUP
Create the domain's directory and designate its servers.	# nismkdir -m smaster -s salesreplica Sales.Wiz.Com.
Create org_dir, groups_dir, and tables. (For NIS-compatibility, use -Y.)	# /usr/lib/nis/nissetup Sales.Wiz.Com.
Create the admin group.	# nisgrpadm -c admin.Sales.Wiz.Com.
Assign full group rights to the domain's directory.	# nischmod g+rmcd Sales.Wiz.Com.
Add servers to admin group.	# nisgrpadm -a admin.Sales.Wiz.Com. smaster.Wiz.Com. \ sreplica.Wiz.Com.
Add credentials for other admins.	# nisaddcred -p 22244 -P juan.Sales.Wiz.Com. local # nisaddcred -p unix.22244@Sales.Wiz.com. \ juan.Sales.Wiz.Com. des
Add admins to domain's admin group.	# nisgrpadm -a admin.Sales.Wiz.Com. juan.Sales.Wiz.Com.