configure NIS test hangs on one of my OS X machines

configure NIS test hangs on one of my OS X machines

[William G. Scott]

I have two presumably identically configured iMacs, one at work and  
one at home.  Both are intel running OS X 10.5.4.

zsh configures fine on the machine at work.  At home, it hangs  
indefinitely testing for NIS

checking for RFS superroot directory... no
checking whether we should use the native getcwd... no
checking for NIS... no
checking for NIS+... no

vs.

checking for /dev/fd filesystem... /dev/fd
checking for RFS superroot directory... no
checking whether we should use the native getcwd... no
checking for NIS...

Neither should have NIS.  The one where this works is running NFS.

Re: configure NIS test hangs on one of my OS X machines

[Bart Schaefer]

On Sep 8,  8:19pm, William G. Scott wrote:
}
} I have two presumably identically configured iMacs, one at work and  
} one at home.  Both are intel running OS X 10.5.4.
} 
} zsh configures fine on the machine at work.  At home, it hangs  
} indefinitely testing for NIS

Does the Mac at home have *any* kind of networking active?

Run

    /usr/bin/ypcat passwd.byname

from a shell.  Does that hang forever?  Can you trace it to find out why?
(I forget whether MacOS has "strace" or something else.)

Re: configure NIS test hangs on one of my OS X machines

[William G. Scott]

Hi Bart:

Thanks for the reply.

No strace (has traceroute -- no idea how to use it).


On Sep 8, 2008, at 9:39 PM, Bart Schaefer wrote:

> /usr/bin/ypcat passwd.byname


The one I have at work participates in an NFS network, webserver, and  
zsh configure works ok:
sage-% /usr/bin/ypcat passwd.byname
No such map passwd.byname. Reason: Request arguments bad
sage-%


My one at home does this:

zsh-% /usr/bin/ypcat passwd.byname

YP server for domain localhost not responding, still trying
YP server for domain localhost not responding, still trying
YP server for domain localhost not responding, still trying
YP server for domain localhost not responding, still trying
YP server for domain localhost not responding, still trying
YP server for domain localhost not responding, still trying
YP server for domain localhost not responding, still trying
YP server for domain localhost not responding, still trying
YP server for domain localhost not responding, still trying

(indefinite hang).

I turned off file sharing and bluetooth sharing and it still hangs...

Is there a way to avoid the test entirely?  This is for the fink zsh  
package on OS X and they all should configure identically anyway.

Bill

Re: configure NIS test hangs on one of my OS X machines

[Bart Schaefer]

On Sep 8, 10:04pm, William G. Scott wrote:
}
} Thanks for the reply.
} 
} No strace (has traceroute -- no idea how to use it).

I just googled it, what you'd want is called ktrace.  However, the
error messages below are probably good enough.
 
} The one I have at work participates in an NFS network, webserver, and  

Those are all completely irrelevant.  YP (yellow pages) is its own
network service.  NIS stands for "network information service".

} zsh-% /usr/bin/ypcat passwd.byname
} 
} YP server for domain localhost not responding, still trying
} 
} (indefinite hang).

So it just stops printing those error messages?  That's a bit odd.
Anyway, it'd probably time out after 15 minutes or so.
 
} I turned off file sharing and bluetooth sharing and it still hangs...

This has absolutely nothing to do with files or the web or bluetooth.
 
} Is there a way to avoid the test entirely?

Unfortunately not without changing the configure script.  The easiest
thing might be to temporarily rename /usr/bin/ypcat, and then rename it
back after configuration has finished.

} This is for the fink zsh package on OS X and they all should configure
} identically anyway.

They are configuring identically.  The problem is that an underlying
system service, in this case the yellow pages, is incompletely set up,
and is behaving badly.  For example on my home linux system:

schaefer[533] /usr/bin/ypcat passwd.byname
ypcat: can't get local yp domain: Local domain name not set
schaefer[534] 

This is more along the lines of what I'd have expected (and what the
writer of that part of zsh's configure script expected) ypcat to do:
fail immediately if no server could be reached, not keep trying for
some unknown length of time.

Re: configure NIS test hangs on one of my OS X machines

[William G. Scott]

On Sep 8, 2008, at 11:11 PM, Bart Schaefer wrote:
>
> } (indefinite hang).
>
> So it just stops printing those error messages?

No, it keeps printing them ad infinitum.

>  That's a bit odd.
> Anyway, it'd probably time out after 15 minutes or so.

After an hour and a half (getting the kids to school) it was still  
hanging.
>
> This has absolutely nothing to do with files or the web or bluetooth.

My point was only that I turned off all the remaining optional network  
services that were on.  The only thing that is consistent is that all  
the computers that suffer this problem are behind a wireless router.


> } Is there a way to avoid the test entirely?
>
> Unfortunately not without changing the configure script.  The easiest
> thing might be to temporarily rename /usr/bin/ypcat, and then rename  
> it
> back after configuration has finished.

For purposes of maintaining the Fink package, I can't touch anything  
outside of its realm.

       perl -pi -e "s|ypcat|false|g" configure

in the packaging script masks the problem, and since this is only for  
OS X machines, is probably the easiest fix for this purpose unless you  
or someone sees a problem with this. I am assuming it is harmless.

The main thing is the user should be able to type

     fink install zsh

and get it to download and compile without manual intervention.


>
> This is more along the lines of what I'd have expected (and what the
> writer of that part of zsh's configure script expected) ypcat to do:
> fail immediately if no server could be reached, not keep trying for
> some unknown length of time.

Hopefully this is a peculiarity of my home network setup.

Thanks.

Bill

Re: configure NIS test hangs on one of my OS X machines

[Phil Pennock]

On 2008-09-09 at 08:34 -0700, William G. Scott wrote:
> On Sep 8, 2008, at 11:11 PM, Bart Schaefer wrote:
> > } (indefinite hang).
> >
> > So it just stops printing those error messages?
> 
> No, it keeps printing them ad infinitum.

This smells like a packet filter somewhere; eg, on your laptop or your
laptop trying to talk to a a corporate map whilst you're not at work or
on a VPN, so things time out because the corporate firewall is dropping
these packets into a black-hole.

> Hopefully this is a peculiarity of my home network setup.

With MacOS 10.4.11 in a setup not using YP/NIS/NIS+ I get:

% ypcat passwd.byname
No such map passwd.byname. Reason: Request arguments bad

So since I doubt that 10.5 adds *more* NIS, I somewhat suspect that NIS
was configured on your system and times out when it can't talk to the
servers.

-Phil

Re: configure NIS test hangs on one of my OS X machines

[William Scott]

>
> With MacOS 10.4.11 in a setup not using YP/NIS/NIS+ I get:
>
> % ypcat passwd.byname
> No such map passwd.byname. Reason: Request arguments bad

Yeah, I get the same on my machines at work.

>
>
> So since I doubt that 10.5 adds *more* NIS, I somewhat suspect that  
> NIS
> was configured on your system and times out when it can't talk to the
> servers.

Maybe I messed with something and forgot (it is all downhill after 40).

Thanks.

Bill


>
>
> -Phil