From owner-freebsd-questions Thu Oct 31 08:01:24 1996 Return-Path: owner-questions Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id IAA16690 for questions-outgoing; Thu, 31 Oct 1996 08:01:24 -0800 (PST) Received: from post-ofc01.srv.cis.pitt.edu (root@post-ofc01.srv.cis.pitt.edu [136.142.185.10]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id IAA16680 for ; Thu, 31 Oct 1996 08:01:18 -0800 (PST) Received: from unixs6.cis.pitt.edu (jddst19@unixs6.cis.pitt.edu [136.142.185.44]) by post-ofc01.srv.cis.pitt.edu with SMTP (8.8.2/cispo-2.0.1.7) ID ; Thu, 31 Oct 1996 10:37:14 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 31 Oct 1996 10:37:14 -0500 (EST) From: John D Duncan X-Sender: jddst19@unixs6.cis.pitt.edu To: Skynet1@cris.com cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: your mail In-Reply-To: <9610300316.AA22917@voyager.cris.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-questions@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk you should use the vipw utility these days, instead of merely editing the passwd file. There is a form of locking that is done by vipw, which runs cat_mkdb on the passwd file to make the various *passwd.db file types. If those are not changed, then the system will still believe that the user exists. Once they are, the system will change its mind. -jd (/etc/passwd is now merely an informational file for programs to find various information out about users, like their full names and their login shells). ============== jddst19+@pitt.edu John Duncan Freshman, University of Pittsburgh "I'm not a doctor, but I ate one at the UPMC..."