Dear colleagues,
(Original question below)
Again this list solved a problem in record time.
It turns out that entries in the etc/group file should only be made, if the
user belongs to MORE THAN 1 GROUP. Most people however only belong to 1
single group, so the problem of lines getting too long (as we had) normally
doesn't occur.
At our site, however, we slightly modified the adduser script, e.g. to get
an easier distribution of users over our disks, and so on.
Apparently this caused the script to start adding entries in the /etc/group
file FOR EVERY USER ADDED. Then of course one very easily hits the built-in
limits (i.e. < 512 char per line).
BTW: there is a DEC patch (SRC961118003438) for 3.2c and higher that brings
the line limit to 1024, basically by changing 'cut' into 'awk' and 'ed'
into 'sed'.
My warmest thanks to all who replied.
Marc
---------------original question----------------------------
>Dear colleagues,
>
>While adding a lot of new students (with the adduser script) I recently
>ran against a problem with the /etc/group file. It looks as if the script
>completely corrupts this group-file by adding duplicate entries etc.
>Has anybody else seen this problem, and what can be done about it ?
--------------------------------------
Marc Thoelen
Director Computer and Network Centre
Limburgs Universitair Centrum
Universitaire Campus
B-3590 DIEPENBEEK
BELGIUM
Tel. +32-11-268130
Fax. +32-11-268199
email mthoelen_at_luc.ac.be
Received on Fri Oct 24 1997 - 12:31:23 NZDT