Subject: Do I realy need the passwd- and the group-file ?

From: gc_team28 <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1999 16:26:50 +0200

Hi!

I have just finished a shell script, that adds a new user to my ftp-group.
After i have tested it for serveral times on a seperate computer, i
recognized, that i didn't change the etc/passwd and etc/group files in
the guests root-directory. So, i tried to log in from another computer
and...surprise..it worked!!

My question is: Why do i need these files?

Andre Lüpke

---

From: Gregory A Lundberg <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1999 11:05:18 -0400

On Wed, Jul 14, 1999 at 04:26:50PM +0200, gc_team28 wrote:

> I have just finished a shell script, that adds a new user to my
> ftp-group.  After i have tested it for serveral times on a seperate
> computer, i recognized, that i didn't change the etc/passwd and etc/group
> files in the guests root-directory. So, i tried to log in from another
> computer and...surprise..it worked!!
> 

For all versions of WU-FTPD:

  * The local etc/passwd and etc/group files are used by the 'ls' program
    to give user and group names to the ID numbers.

For version 2.5.0 of WU-FTPD:

  * Bugs in earlier versions of the daemon have been corrected so 'cd ~'
    and 'cd ~username' work as expected.  For 'cd ~username' the daemon
    uses the local etc/passwd file to locate the given user's home directory.

  * If you use the anonymous-root and/or guest-root clause the user's home
    directory is *NOT* taken from the system /etc/passwd file.  Instead,
    the user is initially changed to their home directory listed in the
    local etc/passwd file.

  * If you use guest-root AND restricted-uid, the daemon uses the local
    etc/passwd home directory entry to determine which directory the user
    is restricted to.

Can you run without the local etc/passwd and etc/group files?  Yes.  But
you will not be able to use , or will have problems using, the ~ filename
globbing feature, anonymous-root, guest-root or restricted-uid.

There may be other uses of these files, and other problems associated with
not having them; this answer is from my memory andI may have forgotten
something.

-- 

Gregory A Lundberg              WU-FTPD Development Group
1441 Elmdale Drive              [email-masked]
Kettering, OH 45409-1615 USA    1-800-809-2195