Problems with NIS and automount on fedora8

[Wallace, Brooke]

I'm trying to bring up a machine on our network with fedora8.
 
The install went well, and it was working until we tried to tie it into
NIS.
 
I did the prescribed edits to /etc/yp.conf, auto.master, nsswitch, etc.
But can't seem to get things working. We have many RHEL4 and RHEL5
systems working just fine. I tried makeing these files exactly the same
as those system, but still no go.
 
Currently the systems X11 greeter is no longer starting up (it was
initially) - now it just hangs after everything appears to come up
normally from a reboot.
 
Switching to single user mode...
 
I can ping systems on the network using IP addresses - no problem
 
Using hostnames w/ or w/o domain name is now finding the IP, but then
generates the following messages:
 
# ping hostbar.domainfoo.com
PING hostbar.domainfoo.com (172,12.34.56) 56(84) bytes of data.
do_ypcall: clnt_call: RPC: Timed out
do_ypcall: clnt_call: RPC: Timed out
64 bytes from hostbar.domainfoo.com (172.12.34.56): icmp_seq=1 ttl=254
time=0.470 ms
 
--- hostbar.domainfoo.com ping statistics ---
1 packets transmitted, 1 received, 0% packet loss, time 0ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.470/0.470/0.470/0.000 ms
 
I saw some posts about do_ypcall ... RPC: Timed out. One mentioned the
nscd, so I started that service, others pretty much sounded like syntax
errors in config files, firewall, or bad cables. 
 
I'm pretty sure I ruled out bad eth driver, cables, and connection since
I can ping using ip address, and I can even connect via samba, using
"user" authentication and ship files to the machine w/no problems or
delays observed.
 
My IT guy is hapring on the fact that its a new fedora release and may
not work on my hardware (drivers), or that another machine on the
network has got the same IP as mine using DHCP (since our routers are
losy).
 
So again the real issue is getting NIS to work. This is what my config
is:
 
/etc/yp.conf:
ypserver 172.12.34.56 # this is the correct address of our yp server
(same as other linux hosts on the network are using)
domain domainfoo.com broadcast # this is the correct domain as well
 
/etc/auto.master:
/mnt/pkg    /etc/auto.pkg -g 
/mnt/sweng /etc/auto.sweng -g
/usr2        yp:auto.home
 
/etc/auto.pkg:
RPM.rhel4WS_FOO -fstype=nfs
somehost.domainfoo.com:/pkg.RHEL_4/FOOpackages
 
/etc/auto.sweng
archives -fstype=nfs anotherhost.domainfoo.com:/opt/mnt/bar/archives
 
I've also added the following to the end of /etc/passwd as per
instructions from our IT docs (although current linux system do not have
this):
+::::::
 
I guess auto.home is on the NIS server....
 
One more note: I am able to see /mnt/pkg/RPM.rhel4WS_FOO w/o
problems....
 
 
Any help someone can give me, or pointers to things to try would be very
much appreciated. Unfortunately our IT guys are afraid of Linux and just
want to support Winblows and thier ancient Solaris systems.
 
-Brooke