Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 13:42:15 +0100 (BST) From: Jan Grant <Jan.Grant@bristol.ac.uk> To: Jud <jud@myrealbox.com> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: How to Regain 'Lost' User? Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.44.0304291340420.13980-100000@mail.ilrt.bris.ac.uk> In-Reply-To: <1051552552.73f8f180jud@myrealbox.com>
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On Mon, 28 Apr 2003, Jud wrote: > Was puttering along changing shells from sh to zsh for root and user, > using chpass -s. This went off without a hitch for root. Then > unaccountably (typo?), when trying the same for user, I received a > response that the user was unknown. > > When I try to create a new user with pw, I'm told a user with this > name already exists. When I try to delete the user, I'm told there is > no such user. Same with sysinstall - gave an error (74) when I tried > to (re)create the user. I've also attempted to delete the relevant > entries from the passwd, master.passwd and group files. After those > deletions, trying to add a user with sysinstall or pw results in an > error message about user being dropped or lost during the operation > (sorry, can't remember the exact wording as I sit here on lunch > break). > > So rather than continuing to flail about, where should I look for > information about what to do? You may want to check your /etc/master.passwd file (use vipw) to see if there's a problem there. Also read the man page for pwd_mkdb (8): you may find you can fix things by simply doing # pwd_mkdb -p -- jan grant, ILRT, University of Bristol. http://www.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/ Tel +44(0)117 9287088 Fax +44 (0)117 9287112 http://ioctl.org/jan/ Work #90: As many pseudo-intellectual sycophants as necessary to make one inarticulate scotsman think he's a genius in command of The Profound.
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