From owner-freebsd-questions Thu May 14 05:21:42 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id FAA17376 for freebsd-questions-outgoing; Thu, 14 May 1998 05:21:42 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from hotpoint.dcs.qmw.ac.uk (hotpoint.dcs.qmw.ac.uk [138.37.88.162]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id FAA17370 for ; Thu, 14 May 1998 05:21:36 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from scott@dcs.qmw.ac.uk) Received: from brunos-sun.dcs.qmw.ac.uk [138.37.88.185]; by hotpoint.dcs.qmw.ac.uk (8.8.7/8.8.5/S-4.0) with SMTP; id NAA29057; Thu, 14 May 1998 13:21:18 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 13:21:18 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <199805141221.NAA29057@hotpoint.dcs.qmw.ac.uk> Received: locally by brunos-sun (SMI-8.6/QMW-client-3.2b); poster "scott"; id NAA11303; Thu, 14 May 1998 13:16:52 +0100 From: Scott Mitchell MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: Heinrich Langos CC: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: renaming of usernames and homedirectories In-Reply-To: <18614536@toto.iv> X-Mailer: VM 6.22 under 19.15 XEmacs Lucid Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Heinrich Langos said: >Hi > >first of all i have to admit that i'm a linux user so some of the concepts >of freebsd look a little strange to me. now i'm stuck with a system that i >have to maintain as long as the owner is ill. > >1) >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. > >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 ? The non-human-readable database isn't really a security feature, other than only being readable by root. It's to speed up access to the db. Security is provided by the whole password-shadowing mechanism. I believe that vipw locks the database files while you are editing, to prevent anyone else from making inconsistent updates. On a single user machine that will probably never happen, but it doesn't hurt to get into good habits. Anyhow, 'vipw' is less to type..... Scott -- =========================================================================== Scott Mitchell | PGP Key ID |"If I can't have my coffee, I'm just | 0x54B171B9 | like a dried up piece of roast goat" QMW College, London, UK | 0xAA775B8B | -- J. S. Bach. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message