Re: NIS with Linux and Sun: Environment

From: Roger Williams (R.Williams_at_read.the.sig)
Date: 02/22/04 

Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 22:03:04 +1300

On Sat, 21 Feb 2004 15:37:59 +0100, Rick Denoire <100.17706@germanynet.de>
wrote:
>...
>I am integrating some Linux (RH AS 2.1) clients in a Sun (2.7) NIS
>domain. Some difficulties arise related to the different environments
>needed depending on the host from which the user is logging in.
>
>I seems that the /etc/profile and the $HOME/.profile and a lot other
>shell related files have to be adapted to handle environment
>differences, checking the type of host the user is coming from.
>One striking problem is the shell set in the NIS passwd file, which
>will prevent logging in if it won't exist at the same place in the
>client. My only idea until now is to put a link on the client.
>
>I do this procedure for the first time and it seems quite prone to
>errors. For example, similar binaries on different platforms could
>create an own .dir in the user's home (like .netscape), putting files
>there that are not necessarily compatible across platforms, or files
>could be overwritten by switching platforms etc. I am looking for
>something like "best practices", "common methods", "proven solutions"
>or the like, in order not to have to test and invent everything anew.
>Shells used are csh, ksh, bash and sh.
>
>Any hint, recommendation or reference to pertinent documents will be
>highly appreciated.

We also use NIS on Suns to support Linux clients. What we do is maintain
completely separate /home directories for each architecture - which
addresses the issue you have with different config files (ie, the dot-files
and directories created by many applications). Because we use the
automounter, we make the "other" home directory accessible under a
different mountpoint (/home_l on Linux and /home_s on Suns). That is, if
you log into a Linux host, your Linux home directory is /home/username and
your Sun home directory can be accessed as /home_s/username. If you log
into a Sun, then your Sun home directory is /home/username and your Linux
home directory can be accessed as /home_l/username.

We have a second auto.home map (named auto.home_l) that we maintain for the
Linux mount points.

On a Sun client, auto_master has this in it.

/home auto.home -nobrowse
/home_l auto.home_l -nobrowse

On a Linux client auto.master has this in it.

/home yp:auto.home_l
/home_s yp:auto.home

The shell issue is simply managed by having whatever shells you need
available on all platforms. If we've added a locally-compiled shell (like
tcsh to old versions of Solaris) then we put a symbolic link in /bin as you
have done.

I can't say that this is best or common practice - but it is proven :-) 

-- 
Roger Williams, Institute of Geological & Nuclear Sciences, New Zealand
R.Williams
@gns.cri.nz : DEC 3000/300 AXP - OpenVMS v6.2

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