*BSD News Article 91455


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From: John Lucas <jlucas@jnet.vi>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Large passwd files = long rebuilds
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 12:08:20 -0400
Organization: University of the Virgin Islands
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Keith Waters wrote:
> 
> Hi there.
> 
> Does anybody else get irritated with the fact that every time you
> change a password on a FreeBSD system that has a lot of users (>10000)
> it takes FOREVER to rebuild the password database?
> 
> Does anybody have a work-around for this?
> 

I too find this annoying. So far the only relief I have gotten is to run
on really fast hardware (P5-200, Ultra-Wide SCSI drive) :-}

I run an email host with 3200 accounts that has a turnover of about 650
accounts per semester. I create master.passwd entries offline for all
additions (requires only a single rebuild for all accounts added with
"vipw"). For mass removals I run single-user and work offline on a copy
of the master.passwd file and again only a single update is required for
all removals (of course the user files/directories have to added and
removed too). None of this helps the general case of users changing
their passwords individually.

I would love a password database that could be incrementally updated,
but until one shows up, I struggle along.

-- 
| John Lucas                          jlucas@jnet.vi                 |
| Information Technology              NIC Handle: JL423              |
| University of the Virgin Islands    (809) 693-1216                 |
| St. Thomas, VI 00802                http://www.jnet.vi/jlucas.html |