Re: official tool for maintaining /etc/passwd file

On Thu, 4 Jun 1998, Oeschey, Lars wrote:

> can anyone please tell me what should be used to maintain the
> /etc/passwd file? I feel quite dumb, reading all the faq, finding
> there´s nearly no documentaion with squid and being left alone with
> implementing proxy_auth.... where´s the documentation?

The /etc/passwd file is not specific to squid - it provides user
authentication information for the OS as a whole. There was a monstrous
pile of documentation for squid last time I checked.

If you're on a BSD-derived platform, you will probably want to use vipw
(especially if your OS has support for hashed password files and/or shadow
passwords). If you're unfamiliar with vi, set the EDITOR or VISUAL
environment variables to specify an editor you are familiar with.

Other platforms usually supply some kind of adduser/rmuser commands. A lot
of the time it's a lot easier to use your favourite text editor to make
changes, assuming, of course, you are fimilar with the password file
structure. See manual pages for passwd(5), shadow(5).

You can always set the encrypted password field using passwd as root -
this will be easier than computing DES or MD5 hashes in your head :)

--
Joe Abley <jabley@clear.co.nz>      Tel +64 9 912-4065, Fax +64 9 912-5008
Network Architect, CLEAR Net                      http://www.clear.net.nz/