If everything is fine (as it should be), you should be able to verify your installation with a few simple commands. Assuming, for example, your passwd file is being supplied by NIS, the command
% ypcat passwd
should give you the contents of your NIS passwd file. The command
% ypmatch userid passwd
(where userid is the login name of an arbitrary user) should give you the user's entry in the NIS passwd file. The "ypcat" and "ypmatch" programs should be included with your distribution of traditional NIS or NYS.
If a user couldn't log in, run the following program on the client:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <pwd.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
struct passwd *pwd;
if(argc != 2)
{
fprintf(stderr,"Usage: getwpnam username\n");
exit(1);
}
pwd=getpwnam(argv[1]);
if(pwd != NULL)
{
printf("name.....: [%s]\n",pwd->pw_name);
printf("password.: [%s]\n",pwd->pw_passwd);
printf("user id..: [%d]\n", pwd->pw_uid);
printf("group id.: [%d]\n",pwd->pw_gid);
printf("gecos....: [%s]\n",pwd->pw_gecos);
printf("directory: [%s]\n",pwd->pw_dir);
printf("shell....: [%s]\n",pwd->pw_shell);
}
else
fprintf(stderr,"User \"%s\" not found!\n",argv[1]);
exit(0);
}
Running this program with the username as parameter, it will print all the information the getpwnam function will give back for this user. This should show you, which entry is incorrect. The most common problem is, that the password field is overwritten with a "*".