> 
> Whenever I boot, ypbind hangs.  (i.e., the "ypbind" just sits there
> on screen until I ^C it.)  So, not really caring for yp, I remove /var/yp.
> 

I have experienced this as well.  I started portmap, then ypserv, then
ypbind.  THe first time, I got an error about "unable to map RPC" or
something.  Since then, it just quietly "sort of" dies.  It doesn't
hang, but it also doesn't answer yp requests.  If I start up a new one,
the new one works great.  I can get a ypcat of anything (from the new
ypbind).  If I kill the new ypbind and try a ypcat, I get:

No such map passwd.byname. Reason: Can't bind to server which serves this domain

Now if I start up a new ypbind, I get this:

[real accounts deleted]
zeitz:*:103:100:Chris Zeitz:/usr/zeitz:/bin/tcsh

I thought about adding a 'sleep 5' before ypbind to make sure ypserv is
completely ready to go before the ypbind runs.  

> Next time I make, yp is installed, including /var/yp.  The same symptoms
> develop.
> 

That makes sense.  The software works fine and the installation works.
This should create the /var/yp directory for the configuration files.

> I can find many ways to fix this, but I'm not sure what's going on.  Is it
> typical for ypbind to hang?  Is there a simple fix?

Me too.

-- 
Dave Burgess  (The man of a thousand E-Mail addresses)
*bsd FAQ Maintainer / SysAdmin for the NetBSD system in my spare bedroom
"Just because something is stupid doesn't mean there isn't someone that 
doesn't want to do it...."