our problems with nis were solved by adding two lines to /etc/init.d/nis:

start ()
{
rm -fv /var/run/ypbind.pid # line added
/etc/init.d/portmap restart # line added
oname=`domainname`
nname=`cat /etc/defaultdomain`


in /etc/passwd we added:
+::::::

and in /etc/groups
+:::

and finally in /etc/fstab
192.168.10.1:/home /home nfs auto,defaults 0 0

since then it works fine.
boesche