> > The real world doesn't work that way.  For the general purpose system
> > both /etc/passwd and /etc/master.passwd must also be kept up-to-date for
> > non-DB-capable programs which access their contents (awk, cut, sed, etc.).
> 
> Wasn't the point that the password field in /etc/passwd doesn't get updated,
> so why rebuild the entire file when the password field changes in the shadow
> file?

Not just passwords getting changed, but shells and other fields.

> Or did I miss something in this thread?

The problem is that it takes a long time to generate the /etc/pwd.db and
/etc/spwd.db files when there are many users.

   Jeremy C. Reed
   http://www.reedmedia.net/