> if you're running all *bsd clients then master.passwd should work
> as expected (although I can't recall if I finished modifying the yp
> getpwent routines in libc to use it).

that's the point.  my clients are about a dozen different flavors of
*ix, most of which don't come with source code.

> the problem i see with your suggestion is that can you guarantee that
> non *bsd clients will work; i.e, do all their clients bind to <1024
> if euid==0? 

the rpc library that sun gave away seems to do this, and most 
(but perhaps not all?) rpcs on UNIX boxes seem to be derived 
from the sun library.  in that library, both clntudp_bufcreate 
and clnttcp_create call bindresvport() unconditionally.
(and ignore the result that says whether it succeeds or fails)

Keith