From owner-freebsd-hackers  Fri Jan 23 21:29:24 1998
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Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 00:25:03 -0500
To: pstewart@oncomdis.on.ca, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
From: Giao Nguyen <notwerk@calweb.com>
Subject: Re: Linux --> FreeBSD
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At 08:30 PM 1/23/98 +0000, pstewart@oncomdis.on.ca wrote:
>One thing I am not totally clear on is the way the passwd.master file 
>is updated.  I can run adduser etc. and put a user online but does 
>that automatically update the passwd.master.

First of all, let me congratulate you on the switch. Good choice.
Excellent job.

No,, passwd.master is updated any time that you make a change to the
password table. In fact this is the master table. The other table 
(/etc/passwd) only exists for user application to get pertinent (ie, 
not passwords and not user group) for the application's nefarious uses 
(or any other imaginative uses the author deems appropriate).

There is *another* file pertinent to the password system, /etc/pwd.db. 
This file is a database of the password information. Why? Because large
tables mean longer read time. Having a hash database shortens the read
time. This rocks for large installations (large => 1).

If you modify passwd.master by chfn, chsh, passwd, etc. that's fine. If
you modify it with vi, don't forget to build /etc/pwd.db with pwd_mkdb.

Have fun.


Giao Nguyen