Package: nis Version: 3.15-3 Severity: grave Justification: renders package unusable
(arguably critical; when installed, renders login unusable) When root tried to su - eddy it got this response on stderr: -su: nss_nis/nis-netgrp.c:79: _nss_nis_setnetgrent: Assertion `malloc_usable_size (netgrp->data) >= len + 1' failed. When I try to log on at a terminal, I get exactly the same response, but without the -su: prefix (however, it was much easier to capture the response from root's shell using 2>file, and e-mail it to myself). I had +::0: as the last line of my /etc/group and [EMAIL PROTECTED]:::::: as last line of /etc/passwd, for a suitable host name on our local network, and, after first seeing the above error, also added this line at the end of /etc/shadow, but this made no visible difference. Naturally, I had to remove all of those before I could log in. My nis/domain is a local domain served by another host on the local network, which /etc/yp.conf is configured to consult; ypcat passwd's output did include lines for eddy on that server, and /var/yp/binding/ did get entries (.1 and .2) for the domain specified. The debconf info (which used to contain the nis/domain datum discussed above) says nis is "not yet configured". Since I've uninstalled nis and re-installed it recently, I can only suppose this is due to the installation scripts not configuring nis. Getting to the point above had involved a great deal of guess-work, reading of man pages, stumbling by chance on relevant files and filling those with data by trial and error. Nothing made itself even remotely obvious as a "how to tell nis to configure itself", even in the course of all that rummaging. Running dpkg-reconfigure, I get consulted for the nis/domain value; it already knows the value I had configured it to by hand; and I think this was run when I re-installed nis. (The prompt for this is, fundamentally, unhelpful: only when I'd got it wrong, and rummaged a lot as above, did I discover a passing comment, probably in a man page: from which I realized that it isn't a domain name in the normal sense; and gleaned that the datum is stored in /etc/defaultdomain, and must match that on the nis server, so went to the ypserver and looked in its /etc/defaultdomain to discover the correct value. It would be worth saying "look in your NIS server's /etc/defaultdomain for the authoritative version of this variable" or some such.) I didn't get consulted for the ypserver's IP address, nor was I asked whether I wanted to enable nis in passwd and group. Until the package's installation scripts ask those questions and sort out the correct magic in /etc/*, this package is not ready for normal mortals to use: crucial information is only available by asking someone who already knows, or by insane amounts of effort, persistence and lucky guess-work. But I digress. -- Package-specific info: -- System Information: Debian Release: testing/unstable APT prefers testing APT policy: (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable'), (1, 'experimental') Architecture: i386 (i686) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash Kernel: Linux 2.6.13-1-686-smp Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968) Versions of packages nis depends on: ii debconf [debconf-2.0] 1.4.66 Debian configuration management sy ii libc6 2.3.5-8 GNU C Library: Shared libraries an ii libgdbm3 1.8.3-2 GNU dbm database routines (runtime ii libslp1 1.2.1-5 OpenSLP libraries ii make 3.80+3.81.b4-1 The GNU version of the "make" util ii netbase 4.24 Basic TCP/IP networking system ii portmap 5-16 The RPC portmapper ii sysvinit 2.86.ds1-4 System-V like init nis recommends no packages. -- debconf information: * nis/not-yet-configured: -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
