[Bug 918035] [NEW] adduser not working with nis

[Dirk Seidel]

Public bug reported:

I have installed NIS on our servers (Ubuntu Server 10.04.3, all updates
installed). Everything is working fine, except for one thing.

I added "nis" in /etc/pam.d/common-password:
password [success=1 default=ignore] pam_unix.so obscure sha512 nis

Users can now change their passwords on any machine using passwd in the usual way. This works fine. 
The problem arises if I try to change passwords for root or for a user as root. passwd asks for "NIS server root password:", but at that point I have to enter the root or the users(!) password, depending on which password I try to change. So I am not able to change passwords as root if I don't know the users password. 
In addition, if I try to add a user with adduser, it is not possible to set the users password at all. At the stage where passwd is executed an entry for the new user in /etc/shadow exists, but is disabled with a "!" in the password hash field. It seems that nothing works for "NIS server root password:". I have tried the root password and simply "enter".

** Affects: pam (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/918035

Title:
  adduser not working with nis

Status in “pam” package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  I have installed NIS on our servers (Ubuntu Server 10.04.3, all
  updates installed). Everything is working fine, except for one thing.

  I added "nis" in /etc/pam.d/common-password:
  password [success=1 default=ignore] pam_unix.so obscure sha512 nis

  Users can now change their passwords on any machine using passwd in the usual way. This works fine. 
  The problem arises if I try to change passwords for root or for a user as root. passwd asks for "NIS server root password:", but at that point I have to enter the root or the users(!) password, depending on which password I try to change. So I am not able to change passwords as root if I don't know the users password. 
  In addition, if I try to add a user with adduser, it is not possible to set the users password at all. At the stage where passwd is executed an entry for the new user in /etc/shadow exists, but is disabled with a "!" in the password hash field. It seems that nothing works for "NIS server root password:". I have tried the root password and simply "enter".

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