[ILUG] Interesting escaping conundrum

[Niall O Broin]

On Fri, Dec 22, 2000 at 12:24:22PM +0000, Justin Mason wrote:

> > I need to manage the passwd and shadow files on two linked machines in a
> > programmed manner. I have a shell script which, amongst other things, allows
> > the changing of any user's password by simplying calling passwd with the
> > user name. This script may be run on either of the two machines, and if a
> > user's password is changed, it must be changed on both machines (in this
> > situation, NIS is NOT an option). Root on either machine can carry out
> > unattended operations on the other machine using ssh and appropriate
> > authorisation file.
> 
> I have a script I used to use in a previous workplace to synch passwords
> across a network of machines with the following features:
> 
>   1. one central server, updating other machines periodically via rsh/ssh
> 
>   2. passwords, passwd file entries and groups are synced
> 
>   3. only user accounts are synced -- others are ignored
> 
>   4. safe writes -- if the write fails due to disk full, it backs out
> 
>   5. written in Perl, of course. ;)

This script started out as a small shell script and like a lot of such
things, it's gotten bigger. I should have written it in Perl from the
get-go, but I couldn't be arsed changing it now, when it basically does what
I need, apart from this password issue. I did consider simply scp'ing
/etc/passwd and /etc/shadow from one machine to the other, but I am loath to
do that - don't have a concrete reason, just instinct. The password files on
these machines should always be exactly in sync, so probably there's no reason
to not simply scp the files, but . . .




Regards,


Niall