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Date:      Thu, 2 May 2002 14:36:41 -0400 (EDT)
From:      Stephen Hovey <shovey@buffnet.net>
To:        "Geoffrey C. Speicher" <geoff@speicher.org>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: concurrent pw(8) corrupts master.passwd sometimes?
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.4.05.10205021434360.20769-100000@buffnet11.buffnet.net>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.05.10205021357360.41967-100000@speicher.org>

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I think with the yp stuff it was the script for pushing out the maps - it
would call pwd_mkdb or whatever and could sometimes do so concurrently and
chew the works - SCO's did the same thing.  So I just modified the script
file to check for a certain file - if it exits, abort, if it doesnt exit,
create it and continue ending in the removal of said file.

Nothing fancy - but enough to keep my password files in 1 piece! :)

On Thu, 2 May 2002, Geoffrey C. Speicher wrote:

> On Thu, 2 May 2002, Stephen Hovey wrote:
> 
> > I had trouble like this with the YP stuff - if two people changed their
> > passwords or something at the same time, etc.
> > 
> > I put my own locking in so that if something is in process it doesnt even
> > try to run.
> 
> How much code do pw and the YP utils use in common?
> 
> This is an excerpt from the BUGS section of pw(8):
> 
>      There are the obvious races with multiple people running pwd_mkdb on dif-
>      ferent password files at the same time.  The front-ends to pwd_mkdb,
>      chpass(1), passwd(1) and vipw(8), handle the locking necessary to avoid
>      this problem.
> 
> Isn't pw(8) conspicuously missing from that list?
> 
> > if it were me - I would change the method to create a file of pw commands,
> > that a cronjob checks for an executes evern so many minutes IF a lockfile
> > doesnt exit (so worst case it takes an extra 5 minutes before an account
> > is created).
> 
> Good idea.  It may come to that if I can't fix it the right way.
> 
> Geoff
> 
> 


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