I've put together an article about running an NIS master from a NetInfo master.
This may be of use to people who want to create simple NAS type devices using Linux which need to share configuration information with OS X machines without the overhead of LDAP.
[robg adds: The host machine linked above was quite slow when I loaded it this morning (perhaps due to the US -> UK connection?), so I've recreated the text of the article in the main body of the hint, as well as hosted the download file that's mentioned in the article (both with g_nix's permission, of course!). Read the rest of the hint to see the entire article...]Why run NIS on OS X
In a mainly OS X environment, where directory information is stored in NetInfo, introducing a single Linux machine brings
a raft of headaches as far as authentication information is concerned. One has to either move to LDAP based directory
information, or manually synchronise the account databases between the systems. Running an NIS master on the OS X netinfo
master make Linux (and other UNIX) integration trivial.
How to run NIS on OS X
Download this Makefile (right click or control-click and Save Target / Download Link, etc), and replace the existing /var -> yp -> Makefile.yp with it. Remember to backup the existing Makefile.main if you wish to return to the defaults.
Open the Makefile.main in your favourite editor. At the top are the configurable options - MINUID, MINGID and NETINFODOMAIN. Configure these as required:
Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20030612062231633