[scyld-users] RE: Creating user accounts....

[Donald Becker]

On Wed, 19 Feb 2003, RANGI, JAI wrote:

> Thanks for all of you for giving me the ideas for setting up a script for
> user accounts managements...
> Here is what I did and at this point of time it is working just fine ( Might
> not be very fancy for some of you) for our cluster......
>
> passwd $1
> matchusers.sh 
...
> rcp /etc/group geonode1:/etc/group
> rcp /etc/passwd geonode1:/etc/passwd

While this will likely function with careful use, it is not robust.
Consider
   Simultaneous updates to
   Down nodes

With simultaneous 'rcp' you run the slim but non-zero chance that you
will clear or corrupt /etc/passwd.

The problem with the many script-based cluster "management" software
systems is that they will almost always work for the people that wrote
them.  Without realizing it, they avoid exercising the fragile parts of
the system.  But pass it on to someone else, and the first thing that
happens is "everyone update your password now".
 
> I did some reading on LDAP that also looks a nice options for accounts
> managements. Seems like none have done worked on it, I am Still hunting for
> some time to work on LDAP, I will try to post some more info on that soon...

LDAP is "just another directory service".  That's good, because the
concepts from other directory services transfer.  It's throughly out of
favor with Unix shops, which is bad because you will need help at some
point.
LDP is cleaner and more efficient in some areas, but the semantics are not
what you would expect for a system that should have had the benefit of
earlier experience.

-- 
Donald Becker				becker at scyld.com
Scyld Computing Corporation		http://www.scyld.com
410 Severn Ave. Suite 210		Scyld Beowulf cluster system
Annapolis MD 21403			410-990-9993