Nathan Conrad wrote:
Another reason to use the usermod program that came with your OS is
that some computers are configured to look for password data in places
other than a shadow file. For example with MacOS, all of the password
information is stored in a NetInfo or LDAP database while only root
and a few other key users are stored in passwd and shadow. The MacOS
user modification programs are smart enough to determine where the
password metadata is stored and edit it accordingly. Most Linux
distributions use LAM which is able to authenticate via LDAP and other
things.
But, must Linux installations still just use the passwd and shadow
files. You should be safe editing the passwd and shadow file for the
time being.
Very good point. As an example, the TriLUG machines keep their
user info in LDAP and Kerberos. Hopefully with the LDAP presentation
that Mark Turner gave several months ago and a potential LDAP
class upcoming soon (hopefully!) more people will be keeping their
user info in LDAP too. :-)
Cheers,
Tanner
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