*BSD News Article 94035


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From: myke@phluffy.cyberport.net (Mike Holling)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Stupidly remove a user
Date: 20 Apr 1997 23:02:48 GMT
Organization: Cyberport Montana.
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References: <01bc4d4d$659e3960$dcc42299@beta>
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In article <01bc4d4d$659e3960$dcc42299@beta>, Ming Chu wrote:
>I've tried to remove a user by deleting an entry in /etc/master.passwd and
>in /etc/passwd and then rm -r /home/<username>; however, not only that the
>user can still log on, but I cannot add any new user now. And the error
>message is: "Corrupted /etc/master.passwd..."
>
>Help!!! Do I have to reinstall FreeBSD again in order to recover this?

Of course not.  Use "vipw" to edit the password file and make sure there's 
no blank lines or garbage characters in there.  When the file is fixed, vipw
will regenerate the password databases on exit.  You can set the EDITOR
environment variable to another editor if you don't like vi.

- Mike