[vox-tech] NFS and user IDs

[Peter Jay Salzman]

begin Shawn P. Neugebauer <spn@ucdavis.edu> 
> On Sunday 02 March 2003 09:20 am, Rod Roark wrote:
> > Anyone know if there's a way to map user IDs (other than
> > root) across NFS?
> >
> > I.e., user "rod" on the client machine has ID 1000, but on
> > the NFS server is 500, and I'd like general access to my
> > home directory from the client.
> 
> The simplest solution is to use the same UID when you configure
> the 2nd machine.  For a small network, it is generally not hard to change
> the UID's to match--but you need to find a few odds-and-ends
> (e.g., /var/spool/mail).  There was a recent thread on vox-tech about 
> the dual problem of changing username.  It's an easy mistake, on a small
> network, to end up with machines having different UID's--it's not
> something one usually thinks about on a small network.
> 
> The more general solution is to run NIS.  Then you don't have
> a UID hard-coded on a machine, you get it from the NIS server.
> It's not hard to get NIS running for a small network, but there's
> a little bit of a learning curve.  You would still need to "retro-fit"
> your filesystems to get all the UID's to match-up.
snip

just out of curiosity, have you (or anyone) got NIS to work?  i spent a
couple of hours at it, and never really got it to function.

i might take another stab at it if i knew there were people i could ask
questions to.  :)

pete