If you add your nis user to the admin group in etc /etc/group then it works. (At least for me.) I added the nis user(s) to all groups the initial user was added. I have seen a bug report that it dose not work with the admin group over the network, I can nither confirm nor deny that case. With local system groups and remote users it works.
On a side note I keep the initial user as administrator in case of network failure. That is way safer than using the real root. -- No admin menus with NIS users https://launchpad.net/bugs/33727 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs