From owner-freebsd-questions Wed May 13 17:18:03 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id RAA22892 for freebsd-questions-outgoing; Wed, 13 May 1998 17:18:03 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from jason04.u.washington.edu (root@jason04.u.washington.edu [140.142.78.5]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id RAA22837 for ; Wed, 13 May 1998 17:17:57 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from jcwells@u.washington.edu) Received: from saul2.u.washington.edu (root@saul2.u.washington.edu [140.142.56.21]) by jason04.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW97.05) with ESMTP id RAA17950; Wed, 13 May 1998 17:17:57 -0700 Received: from s8-37-26.student.washington.edu (S8-37-26.student.washington.edu [128.208.37.26]) by saul2.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW97.04) with SMTP id RAA08199; Wed, 13 May 1998 17:17:55 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 13 May 1998 17:16:27 +0000 (GMT) From: "Jason C. Wells" X-Sender: jason@s8-37-26.student.washington.edu To: Heinrich Langos cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: renaming of usernames and homedirectories In-Reply-To: <199805131953.VAA16206@zaphod.wh9.tu-dresden.de> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Wed, 13 May 1998, Heinrich Langos wrote: >how do I rename a user in FreeBSD 2.2.5 on linux i just go and change his >name in /etc/passwd and maybe even in /etc/shadowpasswd and thats it. Use 'vipw' to maintain the passwd databases and their shadows simultaneously. >but in Freebsd the name is also saved in that non-human-readable database >files. :-( >is there any use in that except for security by obscurity? (which history >has shown doesn't work anyway) and how do i get around it ? Yes there is use in using shadow passwd databases. Are you saying that cracking DES is trivial? (Not a dictionary attack on user passwords, but the cipher itself.) To get around it just don't even install DES or the like to begin with. I don't recommend it. Security is a puzzle. You don't want to give away any pieces if you can help it. Keeping passwords in the clear certainly is not recommended. >another problem is that i can't change a users home directory. if i change >it to something different and log in i'm sent to "/". changing the password >of that user overwrites my changes that i made to /etc/passwd and >/etc/master.passwd and replaces the home directory entry with the old one. Again 'vipw' To change a password use the 'passwd' command. >last but not least ... is there a way to search the old digests of the You can search the archives. The link is under documentation at www.freebsd.org. Thank you, | Try some of this. It will show you where you're at. Jason Wells | http://www.freebsd.org/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message