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Date:      Fri, 7 Sep 2007 22:32:00 -0000 (GMT)
From:      jhall@vandaliamo.net
To:        jhall@vandaliamo.net
Cc:        jhall@vandaliamo.net, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org, Derek Ragona <derek@computinginnovations.com>
Subject:   Re: Moving user/group databases
Message-ID:  <2288.12.170.206.13.1189204320.squirrel@admintool.trueband.net>
In-Reply-To: <2153.12.170.206.13.1189201903.squirrel@admintool.trueband.net>
References:  <1756.12.170.206.13.1189198324.squirrel@admintool.trueband.net>  <6.0.0.22.2.20070907161149.025a9ad8@mail.computinginnovations.com> <2153.12.170.206.13.1189201903.squirrel@admintool.trueband.net>

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>> At 03:52 PM 9/7/2007, jhall@vandaliamo.net wrote:
>>>All of my FreeBSD servers boot from CD, and we are going to be having
>>>several temporary employees coming and going over the next 6-12 months.
>>>Is it possible to move the user/group databases from their location in
>>>/etc (which is read only on my CDs) to another location?
>>>
>>>I have read the man page concerning pw and still do not understand what
>>> I
>>>should be doing.  Any suggestions, or direction to a how-to would be
>>>greatly appreciated.
>>>
>>>Thanks,
>>>
>>>
>>>Jay
>>
>> The simplest way would be to put a symbolic link from /etc to a writable
>> location.  You will need to re-make your boot CD to have this change.
>>
>>          -Derek
>>
>> --
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>
> I have recreated the CD with the sym links, and I still run into a problem
> because adduser tries to create temporary files in /etc.  If I remember
> correctly, the files it tries to create are /etc/passwd.XXXXXX.
>
> I was able to get pw to work to add the user accounts, but now I am trying
> to set the password for new account, and have hit the temp file snag.
>
> Is this something which can be reconfigured in pw.conf?
>
> Thanks,
>
>
> Jay
>
>
>

OK.  After some more digging, this is what I have found that I think will
work.

pw -V /xxxx/yyyy/etc other information for user.

vipw -d /xxxx/yyyy/etc and make the necessary password changes, etc.

The only hangup I have now is how to generate the encrypted password.  Any
suggestions would be greatly appreciated.  The passwords in my passwd file
start with $1$ which, if I remember correctly, is DES encryption.

Thanks,


Jay





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