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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!paladin.american.edu!02-newsfeed.univie.ac.at!01-newsfeed.univie.ac.at!Austria.EU.net!EU.net!enews.sgi.com!news.mathworks.com!fu-berlin.de!news.ipf.net!news.omnilink.net!news.toplink.de!toplink1.toplink.net!ck From: ck@news.toplink.de (Christian Kratzer) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: How to restore /etc/passwd? Date: 26 Aug 1996 09:42:09 GMT Organization: TopLink GbR, Germany, Internet Services Lines: 34 Distribution: world Message-ID: <4vrrhh$29a@toplink1.toplink.net> References: <4vo78r$4hje@news-s01.ny.us.ibm.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: toplink1.toplink.net X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Hi reyes01@ibm.net wrote: : In preparation to installing 2.15 I backed up /usr/home, /root, and : the /etc/passwd file. After the installation I tried restoring /etc/passwd : and nothing happened. The rest of the files restored fine. Is it possible : to restore /etc/passwd or is it always in use by the OS? There must : be a way since vipw makes changes to it. : Afterwards I also thought that I should do an adusser (from sysinstall) to : create the UID(?) and the groups. If I was to want to have a comprehensive : backup what system files would I need besides passwd? well if you still happen to have the /etc/master.passwd or one of its backups in /var/backups you can use the following to reinstall it cp the.save.dcopy.of.master.passwd /etc/xxx pwd_mkdb -p /etc/xxx This will recreate the /etc/passwd, /etc/pwd.db and /etc/spwd.db The /etc/password file is mostly useless on it's own. The full information is in the /etc/master.passwd Greetings Christian -- TopLink GbR, Internet Services info@toplink.net Christian Kratzer http://www.toplink.net/ Phone: +49 7452 885-0 Fax: +49 7452 885-199 FreeBSD spoken here!