Keeping /etc/{group,passwd} intentionally out of date?

[Larry Hall (Cygwin)]

Darren Pilgrim wrote:
> We have cygwin installed in a lab with a large number of domain groups 
> and users.  Keeping the /etc/group and /etc/passwd files up to date is 
> impractical due to the rate of account turn-over.  Cygwin Bash Shell has 
> been giving us the error messages produced from /etc/profile nagging us 
> to run mkgroup and mkpasswd.
> 
> Is there anything that will for sure break if our domain user/group 
> information isn't kept current in those files?  Same question but for 
> local group/user information?  Is the effect like that in other unix 
> environments--cosmetic and you're limited to specifying numeric IDs?  I 
> can't find anything obvious and non-cosmetic that would break if these 
> files didn't contain the user's information.  Can I just rip out the 
> checks and be done with it?

The uid to SID mapping is kept in both files, so users/groups that don't
show up in the files are likely to experience permissions problems.  In
case you haven't considered these options, you can always add specific
users/groups to the files (see man pages for 'mkpasswd' and 'mkgroup') or,
if you don't mind the network access, you can keep one file on the network
for all to use, so you can update this once for everybody on some regular
basis.

-- 
Larry Hall                              http://www.rfk.com
RFK Partners, Inc.                      (508) 893-9779 - RFK Office
216 Dalton Rd.                          (508) 893-9889 - FAX
Holliston, MA 01746

_____________________________________________________________________

A: Yes.
 > Q: Are you sure?
 >> A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation.
 >>> Q: Why is top posting annoying in email?

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