Howdy, folks-- I'm kind of new to the mailing list thing, so pardon me if I'm not doing this right.
I'm currently working on a system that runs a lot of Slackware boxes, but I'd like to move over to Debian (for what, I assume, are obvious reasons = ). I've noticed, however, that the passwd and group files for the Slackware system we're currently running are substantially different from those that Debian sets up. In particular, I'm a little worried because the 'user' group number on one is the same as a fairly priveleged group on the other. I'm concerned that this might pose a security threat if we tried a gradual change over--that is, that some one could get on in the 'user' group on, say, the Slackware boxes, and then have access to stuff in the more privileged group on the Debian boxes--either locally, or via NFS, or something. Is this a valid concern? If so, how do I address it? I was hoping to simply substitute in the Slackware group and passwd files for the ones Debian uses right from the start (though it would be nice to not have to worry about this kind of a legacy issue--oh, well, huh?), so that Debian would just install with the same group and user id's as our Slackware system has set up. But I can't seem to find where the original Debian passwd and group files come from--they're just sort of 'there', as soon as you start installing, almost, it seems. Anyway, any help on this would be appreciated--as well as any other security or other problems that you would think might arise during such a procedure. Thanks! --Daniel