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From: rca@cs.brown.edu (Ronald C.F. Antony)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Simple System Question
Message-ID: <60006@brunix.UUCP>
Date: 19 Dec 90 21:42:48 GMT
References: <72100017@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu> <15005@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> <1058@toaster.SFSU.EDU>
Sender: news@brunix.UUCP
Reply-To: rca@cs.brown.edu (Ronald C.F. Antony)
Organization: Brown University Department of Computer Science
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In article <1058@toaster.SFSU.EDU> eps@cs.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott) writes:
>>>3) Why don't new users have their names listed in /etc/passwd?
>>You have discovered the liabilities of NetInfo, or Network Information
>>database.  New users are added directly to a database and are not
>>automatically updated in /etc.  I hope this is "corrected" or made an
>>option in 2.0.  
>This is not "corrected" because it is not a liability.
>Just because you haven't seen something before doesn't make it
>"wrong."*
>(1) There is more information in the NetInfo database
>than can be expressed in the "traditional UNIX file formats"
>(2) That notwithstanding, you are trying to do something
>analogous to displaying a 3-dimensional object on a flat piece
>of paper.  It's just not possible--all you can manage are
>projections.

To set the record straight here:
Although I like the Netinfo concept, as long as NeXT wants to be
BSD4.3 compatible (and I want them to be) there are Unix programs that
rely either on function calls that NeXT did not change to use NI or
that use the flat files driectly. One such example is tcsh. After I
upgraded to 2.0 ~ suddenly did't work anymore. ~username gave me the
error "unknown user: username" etc. 
After a while I finally figured out that tcsh was not broken but my
/etc/passwd was replaced by the upgrade process and tcsh obviously
depends on it for file name completion. So either there is some
funcall screwed or then NeXT should update the flat files even if they
don't use them. 

Ronald
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists
in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the
unreasonable man."   G.B. Shaw   |  rca@cs.brown.edu or antony@browncog.bitnet