In-Reply-To: <200001142348.PAA11715@shell17.ba.best.com>

On Fri, 14 Jan 2000 15:48:40 -0800 (PST) Todd Whitesel <toddpw@best.com> worte:

> > I think the general idea was that (a) if somebody was incapable of using
> > vipw(8) to add a user, we didn't want them on board and (b) nobody could
> > have been arsed to write the tools, although obviously that's happened now
> > - don't take that as authoritave though.
> 
> It's probably close enough to the truth.
> 
> I'd just like to mention that while reinstalling seven machines in one night,
> I found myself _really_ wanting a scriptable command line utility to add a
> user. There was really no "macho" value whatsoever in running vipw(8) once
> on each of seven freshly installed systems just to add the same user account.

Why do you not simple copy the "/etc/master.passwd" to a floppy or over
the network? In your case all host should have the same users. The only
problem with this solution is, that the encryped password is the same on
all hosts. But if the host uses rsh and friends, this is't a real problem,
because it makes not much different if one knowes that a user have the
same passowrd on all hosts he can reach without a password, if he is
loged in on one.

I realy miss the time we call out administraor and ask for new userid with:
  "Pelase make a new user nic on host tide, same as barbra."
and he was smart enough to know to clean the password change uid and
home directory.

...

> Mmm, automation.

Better copying.

Have a nice day
Bernd Salbrechter