From owner-freebsd-questions Wed May 13 18:55:18 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id SAA08314 for freebsd-questions-outgoing; Wed, 13 May 1998 18:55:18 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from freebie.lemis.com (freebie.lemis.com [139.130.136.133]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id SAA08297 for ; Wed, 13 May 1998 18:55:09 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from grog@lemis.com) Received: (from grog@localhost) by freebie.lemis.com (8.8.8/8.8.7) id LAA01426; Thu, 14 May 1998 11:24:52 +0930 (CST) (envelope-from grog) Message-ID: <19980514112451.T320@freebie.lemis.com> Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 11:24:51 +0930 From: Greg Lehey To: Dima Dorfman , djv@bedford.net Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: renaming of usernames and homedirectories References: <199805132200.SAA07148@castor.loco.net> <199805140110.VAA22579@nwalme.pair.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.91.1i In-Reply-To: <199805140110.VAA22579@nwalme.pair.com>; from Dima Dorfman on Wed, May 13, 1998 at 09:10:29PM -0400 WWW-Home-Page: http://www.lemis.com/~grog Organization: LEMIS, PO Box 460, Echunga SA 5153, Australia Phone: +61-8-8388-8286 Fax: +61-8-8388-8725 Mobile: +61-41-739-7062 Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Wed, 13 May 1998 at 21:10:29 -0400, Dima Dorfman wrote: >> Heinrich Langos wrote: >> Never edit /etc/passwd or master.passwd or [linux] shadow directly. > > I have never used any of this tool, vipw. I always just edit > /etc/master.passwd and do a pwd_mkdb. This eams to work just fine. Also, > the only real reason I might use chfn is if I don't have root access. Is > there a reason why I shouldn't edit /etc/master.passwd? Not really, except that you could end up with master.passwd in an invalid state if you change it and your pwd_mkdb doesn't work, and it's somewhat more typing. Basically, this is just what vipw does, so there's no good reason not to use it. I'm usually a pretty dyed-in-the-wool user of basic utilities, but I use vipw. Greg -- See complete headers for address and phone numbers finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message