[OpenAFS] Distributing passwd

[Richard Brittain]

On 12 Jun 2003, Ian Delahorne wrote:

> fronils <fronils@online.no> writes:
>
> > how does people go about the problem of distributing files like
> > /etc/passwd to clients? Using NIS or something else?
>
> We use themis, arla's version of package / mpp. It's run from a
> shellscript that updates the workstation, run usually every hour. It
> pulls home the master passwd for the site (and just about anything
> else that's changed that it needs locally) and massages the data a
> bit.

I'm surprised nobody else mentioned package.  We use the Transarc
"package"  (although most of the clients have migrated to OpenAFS now)
to do client pulls of important files on a periodic cron.  Clients grab
the appropriate master passwd for their architecture and machine class,
but we use a wrapper script which can implement pre- and post- update
commands to do sanity checking on vital files like /etc/passwd.  The
auxiliary commands are kept in the package config file as comments so that
everything is stored in one place.  I don't bother with mpp, that always
seemed like overkill, but it may just be that I never took the time to
figure it out properly.

 Richard

Richard Brittain,  Kiewit Computing Services, 6224 Baker/Berry Library
                   Dartmouth College, Hanover NH 03755
Email: richard.brittain@dartmouth.edu
   or: faculty-workstation-support@dartmouth