> 		if ! egrep "^$i$" /etc/ftpusers > /dev/null ; then

> It looks ok to me, but when I try 

> law:etc {258} egrep ^root /etc/ftpusers
> root    deny
> law:etc {259} 

> I get what looks like a wrong result.

> Is egrep broken?

Maybe, but this isn't evidence of it.  See that second dollar sign in
the script's call?  Your test should have read more like

	egrep ^root\$ /etc/ftpusers

which, I believe, would have produced no output.

Note the

> # XXX This should be updated to support the new format...

which I suspect is what's going on here - the format of /etc/ftpusers
has changed and the script wasn't updated to match, is my guess.

					der Mouse

			       mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca
		     7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B