Mailing-List: contact cygwin-help AT sourceware DOT cygnus DOT com; run by ezmlm
List-Subscribe: <mailto:cygwin-subscribe AT sources DOT redhat DOT com>
List-Archive: <http://sources.redhat.com/ml/cygwin/>
List-Post: <mailto:cygwin AT sources DOT redhat DOT com>
List-Help: <mailto:cygwin-help AT sources DOT redhat DOT com>, <http://sources.redhat.com/ml/#faqs>
Sender: cygwin-owner AT sources DOT redhat DOT com
Delivered-To: mailing list cygwin AT sources DOT redhat DOT com
Message-ID: <3A80A113.7D57350C@beamreachnetworks.com>
Date: Tue, 06 Feb 2001 17:12:51 -0800
From: "Eric M. Monsler" <emonsler AT beamreachnetworks DOT com>
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.74 [en] (WinNT; U)
X-Accept-Language: en
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Archives: Why am I administrator?
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Hi,

I just searched the archives, finding the answer to my question in the
thread "Why am I administrator?"

Near the end of that thread:

>At 02:35 AM 1/11/2001, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
>>Create a correct /etc/passwd entry, that's it. `mkpasswd' will be
>>your friend. And read the documentation. That helps a lot and avoids
>>having _everything_ twice, in the documentation and in the FAQ.

The example in the current User's Guide, to do "mkpasswd -l >
/etc/passwd" and "mkgroup -l > /etc/group", was insufficient in my
case.  I scanned the chapter on ntsec, without gaining much insight into
why I was administrator.  This was before hitting the archives.

My problem was solved by the post that suggested essentially "mkpasswd
-d | grep my_ntusername >> /etc/passwd", by David Peterson (Thanks
Dave!).  Also, I used mkgroup -d, although I did not append everything.

I would like to suggest two things:

1) Is Dave's approach correct in all/most cases?  Can someone more NT
domain knowledgeable comment?

2) If so, can the User's Guide be changed to reflect that?  I have
attached a first cut at a modified section for setup-dir.html that would
have directed me to take the steps I did.

I had produced a new version of the page, with nice formatting, etc.,
but the mailer-daemon bounced it from the list.  My apologies for not
sending a patch, but since I did it with Composer everything was
diff'erent.  I suspect that the source for the User's Guide is not in
HTML, anyway.

Eric Monsler


<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Suggested new text for setup-dir.html
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Under Windows NT, if you want to create /etc/passwd and /etc/group (i.e.
so that whoami works and ls -l replaces the UID with a
name) based on the accounts local to the machine, just do this: 
  
 /$ cd /etc
 /etc$ mkpasswd -l > /etc/passwd
 /etc$ mkgroup -l > /etc/group



If you are logging in based on an NT network domain, and want to also
create entries in /etc/passwd and /etc/group based on all the
accounts in the domain, then after creating local entries do this: 
  
 /$ cd /etc
 /etc$ mkpasswd -d >> /etc/passwd
 /etc$ mkgroup -d >> /etc/group



Alternatively, to add only your account to the passwd file, assuming
your NT name is my_ntusername, instead of the above mkpasswd you should
do: 
  
 /$ cd /etc
 /etc$ mkpasswd -d | grep my_ntusername >> /etc/passwd



Future changes to your NT registry or network domain will NOT be
reflected in /etc/passwd or /etc/group after this so you may want to
regenerate these files periodically. Under Windows 9x, you can create
and edit these files with a text editor.

--
Want to unsubscribe from this list?
Check out: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple