On Sun, 4 May 1997, brian wildasinn wrote:

> Passwd   - what to do?2
> 
> AIEEEE!!!!  Does anyone know how to fix this? i've tried most of the
> suggestions mentioned so far, but passwd still doesn't work yet. exactly
> just how do i  "add a new user", ie myself, to the netBSD1.2D/mac68k
> (4/8/97 current & GENERICSB-27) system loaded on  a Q700 macintosh. 
> yes, yes, must use vipw which rebuilds the databases, but right now this
> system will not let me do anything to create new users!  A screen dump
> and 5 boots are included; hope you see something that shows where the
> problem is. Any help is greatly, greatly appreciated!
> 
group is ok:
> vi group (wheel:*:0:root,brian)
> 	:w
> 	:q
like already mentioned, you should it should be one asterisk. you can
also leave this empty ::, but make sure to give _all_ users a password
with passwd after you`ve fixed your problem (login root, passwd username)

> vipw	(root:**:0:0::0:0:Charlie &:/root:/bin/sh
> 		toor:**:0:0::0:0:Bourne-again Superuser:/root:
> 		...
> 		brian:**:1000:0::0:0:brian wildasinn:/home/brian:/bin/sh)
> 	:w	(saving as /etc/ptmp...)
> 	:q
> ls
> (blank, ie, no files listed in this directory!, all other directories
> are ok)
hmmm, it should be mounted with read/write, so /etc must not be empty...
kinda strange. Anyway, vipw should tell you that it has updated 
master.passwd! 
> login: root
> Password: **
> login Incorrect
The asterisks are just dummy values (netbsd uses password shaddowing). The
password prompt indicates that there are passwords set, are you sure you
haven`t already changed all passwds to some hard to guess values (then
trashed your notes...)?

1. Be sure to name your generic kernel /netbsd (use the minshell in the
installer for this)
2. completely re-install /etc - from installer util, eg. ETC12
3. be sure to mount the right scsi device as root before performing step
1-2. Maybe your passwords live in another /etc, eg. Mymount/etc ?

If these steps don`t help, there must be something gone very wrong with
you installation. I assume your problem is an inconsistency between
master.passwd and the files vipw uses for editing (btw, which are they?)
I would also advice you to name your home directory /home/username or use
a fixed name convention scheme.

Hope this helps,
		--- laleo