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To: cygwin AT sourceware DOT cygnus DOT com
Subject: Re: passwd file entry missing
References: <4 DOT 3 DOT 1 DOT 2 DOT 20010131183736 DOT 06070db8 AT pop DOT ma DOT ultranet DOT com>
	<uyd7d3ff5x DOT fsf AT tcsi DOT com> <3A78ABF9 DOT 6C4B16B1 AT veritas DOT com>
From: dkarr AT tcsi DOT com (David M. Karr)
Date: 31 Jan 2001 16:23:06 -0800
In-Reply-To: Bob McGowan's message of "Wed, 31 Jan 2001 16:21:13 -0800"
Message-ID: <uy7l3bfdzp.fsf@tcsi.com>
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>>>>> "Bob" == Bob McGowan <rmcgowan AT veritas DOT com> writes:
  Bob> Did you use the setup program on your machine and not his?  I believe it runs mkpasswd for you, if /etc/passwd does not exist.

  Bob> "David M. Karr" wrote:
  >> 
  >> >>>>> "Larry" == Larry Hall <cygwin AT cygwin DOT com> writes:
  Larry> At 06:29 PM 1/31/2001, David M. Karr wrote:
  >> >> I've got Cygwin working fine on my PC.  I'm helping someone else set
  >> >> up Cygwin on their PC.  I created a "/home/<username>", and set HOME
  >> >> in control panel to "/home/<username>".  Most things work fine.
  >> >> However, one odd thing is that the "id" program shows his userid as
  >> >> "administrator".  I thought to look in the "/etc/passwd" file, and
  >> >> compare it to what I have.  My "/etc/passwd" file has an entry for my
  >> >> name, but his does not have an entry for his name.  Despite this
  >> >> anomaly, I'm not quite sure what problems this might cause, if any.
  >> >>
  >> >> What are some reasons why he doesn't have a passwd file entry?  What
  >> >> did I do to get an entry for me in my passwd file?  I know I didn't do
  >> >> it manually.
  >> 
  Larry> You ran mkpasswd.  Do so on the other (NT/W2K) machine and you should be
  Larry> fine.
  >> 
  >> Uh, ok.  I just did "mkpasswd -l > /etc/passwd" on his PC, and now
  >> "id" and "whoami" give me something reasonable.  However, I'm quite
  >> sure I never did that on my system.  I think I remember reading about
  >> it in the manual, but I'm pretty sure I never explicitly ran it.

Hmm, I still don't know exactly what happened, but I think the key is
"if /etc/passwd does not exist".  I did run "setup" on both systems.
I would have to guess that when I last ran "setup" on his system,
there was an old passwd file there.  I remember that he used to log on
to his system with "administrator".  I guess the most likely scenario
is that when I ran "setup" on his PC, he was logged in as
administrator.

No big deal.  It's fine now.  I'll now be able to recognize this if it
happens to someone else.

-- 
===================================================================
David M. Karr     ; w:(425)487-8312     ; TCSI & Best Consulting
dkarr AT tcsi DOT com    ; Java/Unix/XML/C++/X ; BrainBench CJ12P (#12004)


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