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From: Kurt Franke <Kurt-Franke AT web DOT de>
Subject: Re: How big are your /etc/passwd and /etc/group files?
Date: Mon, 3 Feb 2014 17:52:37 +0000 (UTC)
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Corinna Vinschen <corinna-cygwin <at> cygwin.com> writes:

> > dbm style unix) database, and don't keep that in memory, unless you
> > want a small LRU algorithm in there to keep a small fixed number.  I
> > bet the tiny delay later on a ls or other unix translation won't be
> > very noticeable.
> 
> This means, a rewrite of the /etc/passwd, /etc/group reading code from
> "all or nothing" to "one at a time when needed".  Maybe that's in fact
> the way to go.

dbm files was already used in yellow pages two dekades ago.
maybe there are some good examples how to do this (yppasswd etc.)

> In theory, we don't want to keep the files around anyway.  I have
> implemented ways to configure user settings from /etc/passwd (like
> home dir or login shell) in the local SAM or in AD.  So the admin
> can switch to centralized maintainance even for Cygwin stuff.

how to handling setting of the the primary group in /etc/passwd ?
is it possible to store in in SAM ?

> On the other hand, we'd like to keep passwd and group for home users
> which don't feel comfortable to make changes to the SAM, but then
> we only need very tiny files with one or two entries anyway.
> 
> Reading the files on demand only might be the right thing to do.
> Catching two birds with one stone...

it may be possible to have both using SAM but with a frontend named
/etc/passwd respective /etc/group

how about setting up read/write devices for passwd and group contents
in /dev/ directory and just create symobolic links to it in /etc/ ?
changes written to the devices of should be allow only to admins.
such changes then should go done to SAM behind it as only storage location.

(this would make cygwin have the most modern handling of theses files
 and become an example for the different unices and linux :-) )


kf






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