From owner-freebsd-hackers  Tue Aug 29 11:10:37 1995
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From: Mark Hittinger <bugs@ns1.win.net>
Message-Id: <199508291815.OAA02459@ns1.win.net>
Subject: pwd_mkdb is intense
To: hackers@freebsd.org
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 1995 14:15:46 -0400 (EDT)
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We have a rather large password file and I can hear the system groaning
whenever someone changes their password.  Top shows the process go to
about 20-30% of the P90 for around 2 or 3 minutes.  Swap space in use
increases by around 15% during this period.

chpass/passwd all pass the buck to pwd_mkdb which recreates the entire
file.

Is there a utility which updates the various keys in the db for just one
particular user id?  Would the db routines that pwd_mkdb calls actually
support the in-place update of a particular record? :-)

Regards,

Mark Hittinger
bugs@win.net