I'm having some problems setting up an NIS slave server on netbsd in a
small domain (varies from say 6-12 computers).  (incidentally, I'd
like to upgrade this netbsd box to master server at some point when
I'm happy with it's functionality)

This machine is a sparc 1 (4/60) running netbsd 1.3.1.  Right now I"m
trying to run it as a slave server (master is a freebsd 2.2.6
box)... clients are a mix of solaris/sparc&intel and freebsd boxes.

The problem I'm having is that when the master server is shut off (it
happens to be my desktop box and so gets shut off rather frequently as
I'm fiddling with it--this is why i want the netbsd/sparc to be the
master ultimately), the switchover to the slave server (the netbsd box
in question) doesn't happen very well.... in fact, often the netbsd
box itself locks up, and then obviously the clients don't switch over!
sometimes the netbsd box is ok, and the switchover occurs, albeit
slower than i expected (10 seconds to 1 minute--why not
instantaneous?) on the various clients.  Moreover, when I bring the
freebsd master down, the netbsd slave is wedged for about 5-15 minutes
*after the master is back up* before it even will accept even a root
login on console again (kind of defeats the purpose of a secondary NIS
server, I think ;-).

Ok... so some details: the master server is set with ypbind running
the -S option to only bind to itself (the -S is a freebsd thing).  the
netbsd slave server has /var/yp/binding/<domain>.ypservers set only to
localhost.  /etc/resolv.conf includes "lookup file bind yp", and
localhost appears in /etc/hosts.  Both the freebsd master and netbsd
slave have securenets set up to point to localhost and my network.
yes, i've noticed that the format for securenets for netbsd and
freebsd is the exact opposite; yes i have it set up right on
respective machines.  I've shut off amd and there are no nfs running
period on the netbsd slave.  The slave is running its own named.  It
is my understanding that this means that this netbsd box should not
care at all if the master server is down, since it is bound to
itself...  however this does not appear to be the case.

I've tried some other variations (like using the hostname instead of
localhost in ypservers on netbsd) and have had little if any success
with many of the permutations I've tried.

this is after unplugging the network from the master server for 10
seconds: 

existing-shell-on-netbsd-slave $ ypwhich
localhost

some-other-computer $ telnet netbsd-slave
Trying <some ip>...
Connected to netbsd-slave
Escape character is '^]'.

NetBSD/sparc (netbsd-slave) (ttyp0)

login: sfarrell
[5 minute pause--sometimes yp timed out messages... yp server not
responding and so on]



Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

--

Steve Farrell