A user or an application tried to look up something using Network Information Services (NIS), but NIS has no corresponding database for this request.
Make sure the NIS map name is spelled correctly. To see a list of nicknames for the various NIS maps, run the ypcat -x command.
To see a full list of the various NIS maps (databases), run the ypwhich -m command.
If the NIS service was not running on the current machine, these commands would result in this message: "can't communicate with ypbind".