From owner-freebsd-questions Sun Mar 12 08:56:12 1995 Return-Path: questions-owner Received: (from majordom@localhost) by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.10/8.6.6) id IAA19890 for questions-outgoing; Sun, 12 Mar 1995 08:56:12 -0800 Received: from hermes.cybernetics.net (hermes.cybernetics.net [198.80.51.103]) by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.10/8.6.6) with ESMTP id IAA19884 for ; Sun, 12 Mar 1995 08:56:09 -0800 Received: (from james@localhost) by hermes.cybernetics.net (8.6.8/8.6.6) id MAA01135; Sun, 12 Mar 1995 12:08:24 -0500 From: James Robinson Message-Id: <199503121708.MAA01135@hermes.cybernetics.net> Subject: Re: Adding Users? To: tom@haven.uniserve.com (Tom Samplonius) Date: Sun, 12 Mar 1995 12:08:24 -0500 (EST) Cc: mcaughey@infi.net, questions@FreeBSD.org In-Reply-To: from "Tom Samplonius" at Mar 11, 95 11:17:33 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 882 Sender: questions-owner@FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > > /etc/passwd is useless. It exists only for compatibility reasons. > /etc/master.passwd contains the real info, but is only used to rebuild the > binary database. So use vipw to edit the password file. This will lock > all the necessary files, and do a proper rebuild of the databases after > editing. > Well, isn't useless a bit harsh of a term? /etc/passwd is still read for things like "finger", "ls -l", "chown", etc... All the things that regular processes need to do wrt/user names, uid's, etc. need to have a password file that they can read -- just not the passwd entry itself. James James Robinson wholly endorses: FreeBSD | Zappa | Tull | Albermarle Ale | XFree86 | Seagull acoustic guitars | Quotes du Jour: "Little man, I give the watch to you." | "Hail Ants"