Date: Fri, 17 Jan 1997 00:11:18 -0500 (EST) From: Bill Paul <wpaul@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu> To: pgilley@metronet.com (Phil Gilley) Cc: msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au, jkh@time.cdrom.com, hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Netscape and NIS Message-ID: <199701170511.AAA06783@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu> In-Reply-To: <Pine.HPP.3.95.970115213550.23099B-100000@fohnix.metronet.com> from "Phil Gilley" at Jan 15, 97 09:41:30 pm
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Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, Phil Gilley had to walk into mine and say: > On Thu, 16 Jan 1997, Michael Smith wrote: > > > Jordan K. Hubbard stands accused of saying: > > > > Unfortunately I discovered today that users can't even use the Web > > > > browser unless they are in the local password database. So now I > > > > not only need a new mail reader, but a new browser too. Unfortunately I don't think there's much you can do about this. BSDI just doesn't have NIS (at least it didn't last time I had access to a BSDI system, which was many months ago) and its shared library implementation was quite a bit different from ours. (For one thing, you had to compile programs with a special gcc wrapper script to generate a dynamically linked executable). > > > Hmmm. I wonder what the Linux version of Netscape does WRT NIS. :-) I suspect that this, like most things with Linux, depends on what particular distribution they use. While I haven't been seized by an urge to go nosing through the Linux NIS code, I've read that there's more than one client-side NIS implementation for Linux. In some cases you need to have a magic + entry in /etc/passwd, in others you need to configure /etc/nsswitch.conf. Sometimes you need ypbind, sometimes you need to frob /etc/yp.conf. In the cases where you need ypbind, there's some question as to whether the /var/yp/<domain>/binding files use the same format. (I think they do since I believe the Linux ypbind is based on Theo's ypbind. Our ypbind is based on his as well, and while I've beaten the crap out of it, it still uses the same binding file format.) In theory, if the Linux nutscrape binary runs on FreeBSD -- either statically linked or using a copy of the Linux shared libc -- then it should be using Linux's NIS code. If you can convince Linux's NIS code to turn on and work, then there's no reason why it wouldn't behave correctly. In theory. > > No idea. It frightens me to think, but if it gets our friend here out > > of a hole then we win. 8) (actually, he does, but you get my drift.) > > > > Any noise on our chances wrt. this yet? Tread carefully. Keep your head down. Don't talk to any strangers. Remember the Alamo. > I plan on giving the Linux version a shot, but it will be a few days > before I get a chance to play with this again. I'll report back. > > Phil Gilley > pgilley@metronet.com Some would argue that not being able to run nutscrape is a good thing. Now if Micro$oft had any brains at all, they'd realize that this is a market Netscape hasn't locked down yet and do an Internet Exploiter for FreeBSD. Wait... what the hell am I saying... -Bill -- ============================================================================= -Bill Paul (212) 854-6020 | System Manager, Master of Unix-Fu Work: wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu | Center for Telecommunications Research Home: wpaul@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu | Columbia University, New York City ============================================================================= "It is not I who am crazy; it is I who am mad!" - Ren Hoek, "Space Madness" =============================================================================
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