Mmm, had problems following a Oracle 10g installation on fenella where the listener service would core dump unable to resolve via TNSNAMES:
fenella # pstack tnslsnr.fenella.9536.1113295030.core |more
core ‘tnslsnr.fenella.9536.1113295030.core’ of 9536: /export/fsa/oracle/product/10.1.0/fsa/bin/tnslsnr LISTENER -inherit
ffffffff7c70054c memcpy (100182130, ffffffff7f8035e0, 0, 0, 10018214c, ffffffff7f807ee0) + 30
ffffffff7de5d254 key_call_ext (9, 100157ff0, 0, ffffffff7de3a26c, ffffffff7f807ee0, 0) + 234
ffffffff7de39780 user2netname_nisplus (ffffffff7f808008, ffffffff7f8080c0, 63, 0, 6c757300, 6c757300) + 60
ffffffff7de3950c user2netname (0, ffffffff7dfb2430, ffffffff7dea1ab8, ffffffff7dea1b18, 0, 109b7e4b0) + e0
ffffffff7de391a4 authdes_pk_seccreate (109b7e410, ffffffff7f8085d0, f, 0, 0, ffffffff7f8085b0) + b4
ffffffff7de7e584 nis_make_rpchandle_gss_svc (ffffffff7f8085b0, 0, 187cc, 3, 6, 0) + 4d8
ffffffff7de7def0 nis_make_rpchandle_uaddr (ffffffff7f8085b0, 0, 187cc, 3, 6, 0) + 30
ffffffff7de853f4 nis_handle (109b5b5b0, 0, 109b5b4e0, 1002b7d80, 1, ffffffff7dfb3038) + 6ac
ffffffff7de2becc nis_get_server (ffffffff7dfb5dc8, ffffffff7dfb5db8, 0, fffffffffffffff8, 0, 1099feb69) + 4a8
ffffffff7de8474c nis_finddirectory_remote (ffffffff7f8088a0, 109ad07f0, ffffffff7f808898, 0, ffffffff7f809bd0, 109b17605) + 70
ffffffff7de8ba14 1cINisCacheNloadDirectory6Mpci_nJnis_error (109b17600, 0, 0, 0, 6c757300, ffffffff7f808948) + 1e4
ffffffff7de8b460 1cINisCacheLbindReplica6MpcppnTnis_bound_directorynJnis_error (2, 1099feab5, ffffffff7f808c90, 0, 1099feab0, 0) + ac
ffffffff7de8ed68 nis_CacheBindDir (1099feab5, ffffffff7f808c90, 30003, 2e000000, 0, 0) + 88
ffffffff7de78bc0 nis_bind_dir (1099feab0, 1, ffffffff7f808c90, 30003, 0, ffffffff7f808cc1) + 20
ffffffff7de2bbc0 nis_get_server (ffffffff7dfb5dc8, ffffffff7dfb5db8, ffffffff7f808c90, fffffffffffffff8, 0, 109af2d71) + 19c
ffffffff7de843d4 nis_remote_lookup (0, 30003, 42000491, 0, 0, ffffffff7f808de8) + d8
ffffffff7de2a25c nis_list (0, 0, ffffffff7dfa8000, 4800, 81010100, 4a60) + 55c
ffffffff7de7d0b0 __nis_principal (ffffffff7f8097cc, 63, 1002b9400, ffffffff7de3a26c, ffffffff7f809bd0, 0) + ac
ffffffff7de397f8 user2netname_nisplus (ffffffff7f809cf8, ffffffff7f809db0, 63, 0, 6c757300, 6c757300) + d8
On further examination it was noticed that niscat commands would hang as oracle. Looking at the NIS+ configuration on fenella showed that nis_cachemgr wasn’t running and restarting it resolved the issue.