I have published a first version of NIS packaged as a deb for ubuntu 16.04.
It is published with packagecloud.io at https://packagecloud.io/rb2nem/nis/
Once you have added the packagecloud repo as described on https://packagecloud.io/rb2nem/nis/install , update the package list with apt-get update and then you install nis with apt-get install nem-nis.
You start nis with systemctl start nem-nis, check its status with systemctl status nem-nis.
nis is installed in /opt/nem/package/nis. It is currently running as root, and the default config makes nis store its data in /root/nis. A future version of the package will certainly run nis under its own user.
Feedback welcome!
rb2