Chapter 24

NIS+ Troubleshooting

In this chapter, problems are grouped according to type. For each problem there is a list of common symptoms, a description of the problem, and one or more suggested solutions.

In addition, Appendix A, Error Messages contains an alphabetic listing of the more common NIS+ error messages.

Note - NIS+ might not be supported in a future release. Tools to aid the migration from NIS+ to LDAP are available in the Solaris 9 operating environment (see Part V). For more information, visit http://www.sun.com/directory/nisplus/transition.html.

NIS+ Debugging Options

The NIS_OPTIONS environment variable can be set to control various NIS+ debugging options.

Options are specified after the NIS_OPTIONS command separated by spaces with the option set enclosed in double quotes. Each option has the format name=value. Values can be integers, character strings, or filenames depending on the particular option. If a value is not specified for an integer value option, the value defaults to 1.

NIS_OPTIONS recognizes the following options:

Table 24-1 NIS_OPTIONS Options and Values

Option	Values	Actions
`debug_file`	filename	Directs debug output to specified file. If this option is not specified, debug output goes to `stdout`.
`debug_bind`	Number	Displays information about the server selection process.
`debug_rpc`	1 or 2	If the value is 1, displays RPC calls made to the NIS+ server and the RPC result code. If the value is 2, displays both the RPC calls and the contents of the RPC and arguments and results.
`debug_calls`	Number	Displays calls to the NIS+ API and the results that are returned to the application.
`pref_srvr`	String	Specifies preferred servers in the same format as that generated by the `nisprefadm` command (see Table 20-1). This will over-ride the preferred server list specified in `nis_cachemgr`.
`server`	String	Bind to a particular server.
`pref_type`	String	Not currently implemented.

For example, (assuming that you are using a C-Shell):

To display many debugging messages you would enter:

setenv NIS_OPTIONS "debug_calls=2 debug_bind debug_rpc"

To obtain a simple list of API calls and store them in the file /tmp/CALLS you would enter:

setenv NIS_OPTIONS "debug_calls debug_file=/tmp/CALLS"

To obtain a simple list of API calls sent to a particular server you would enter:

setenv NIS_OPTIONS "debug_calls server=sirius"

NIS+ Administration Problems

This section describes problems that may be encountered in the course of routine NIS+ namespace administration work. Common symptoms include:

"Illegal object type" for operation message.
Other "object problem" error messages
Initialization failure
Checkpoint failures
Difficulty adding a user to a group
Logs too large/lack of disk space/difficulty truncating logs
Cannot delete groups_dir or org_dir

Illegal Object Problems

Symptoms

"Illegal object type" for operation message
Other "object problem" error messages

There are a number of possible causes for this error message:

You have attempted to create a table without any searchable columns.
A database operation has returned the status of DB_BADOBJECT (see the nis_db man page for information on the db error codes).
You are trying to add or modify a database object with a length of zero.
You attempted to add an object without an owner.
The operation expected a directory object, and the object you named was not a directory object.
You attempted to link a directory to a LINK object.
You attempted to link a table entry.
An object that was not a group object was passed to the nisgrpadm command.
An operation on a group object was expected, but the type of object specified was not a group object.
An operation on a table object was expected, but the object specified was not a table object.