> > On Tue, 16 May 2000, Chris Thompson wrote:
> > > [Although one probably wouldn't want >65K *separate* entries in a flat
> > > /etc/passwd -- one would use NIS or one of its friends.]
SysV is ancient and stupid. Most (all?) of the so-called
"modern" SysV systems still don't let you use passwords longer
than 8 characters. But then, I hate SysV.
> Philip Hazel writes:
> > Or run FreeBSD, which uses DBM passwords automatically and by default.
Yeehaa! Or some other 4.4BSD system, to be precise. 4.4BSD also
has several other advanced features concerning passwd files and
authentication. Login classes, which let you put users and
groups thereof in different classes and specify various
parameters related to them. In BSDI BSD/OS (and probably
FreeBSD) you can use custom authentication, similar to PAM. I
must code it into Exim one day.
Quoth Malcolm Beattie on Wed, May 17, 2000:
> Or run Linux where you need to do something not much more complex:
> # cd /var/db
> # make
[snip]
> The db stuff above probably
> isn't as nicely integrated as FreeBSD though: for example, password
> changing/shell changing whatever won't get propagated automatically
> whereas I assume it does under FreeBSD.
Yes, it does on 4.4BSD systems.
> In some environments you can
> probably just do another "make" after a change but here I use some
> home-brew stuff to do direct updates of the db files.
Of course, it would be even better to throw the plain text passwd
files away altogether. But then, life is imperfect.
Vadik.
--
Do not meddle in the affairs of troff, for it is subtle and quick
to anger.
