Moving user/group databases

[jhall at vandaliamo.net]

>
> On Sep 7, 2007, at 2:51 PM, jhall at vandaliamo.net wrote:
>
>>> At 03:52 PM 9/7/2007, jhall at vandaliamo.net wrote:
>>>> All of my FreeBSD servers boot from CD, and we are going to be
>>>> having
>>>> several temporary employees coming and going over the next 6-12
>>>> months.
>>>> Is it possible to move the user/group databases from their
>>>> location in
>>>> /etc (which is read only on my CDs) to another location?
>>>>
>>>> I have read the man page concerning pw and still do not
>>>> understand what I
>>>> should be doing.  Any suggestions, or direction to a how-to would be
>>>> greatly appreciated.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Jay
>>>
>>> The simplest way would be to put a symbolic link from /etc to a
>>> writable
>>> location.  You will need to re-make your boot CD to have this change.
>>>
>>>          -Derek
>>>
>>> --
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>>>
>>
>> I have recreated the CD with the sym links, and I still run into a
>> problem
>> because adduser tries to create temporary files in /etc.  If I
>> remember
>> correctly, the files it tries to create are /etc/passwd.XXXXXX.
>>
>> I was able to get pw to work to add the user accounts, but now I am
>> trying
>> to set the password for new account, and have hit the temp file snag.
>>
>> Is this something which can be reconfigured in pw.conf?
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>>
>> Jay
>
> It sounds like you made a link for /etc/master_passwd. I'm pretty
> sure what DR meant was a symlink for the entire /etc directory:
>
> /etc -> /somewhere_writable/etc/
>
> You need this because adduser also has to rewrite /etc/passwd and /
> etc/group when you add/delete users. This means copying your entire /
> etc hierarchy somewhere writable; naturally I don't know if this is
> acceptable in your organization.
>
>

OK.  I have been able to get this to work the way I wanted to.  This is
what I have done.

Create symbloic links in /etc to a rw directory for passwd, master.passwd,
group, pw.db, spwd.db.  This directory is not located on the CD.

Use pw to add users, change passwords, etc.

To add a user.

pw -V /location/of/directory adduser -n username -h 0

Using the -h 0, you are prompted to enter the password for the user.

To modify a user.

pw -V /location/of/directory usermod -h 0

Changes the password for the user.

Thanks to everyone for their help.



Jay