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NSS and db
- To: libc-alpha@sourceware.cygnus.com
- Subject: NSS and db
- From: Marcus Harnisch <marcus@harnisch.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de>
- Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 20:15:30 +0200 (CEST)
Hi everybody,
Andreas Jaeger just sent me to this list with my question.
I am in a discussion on another mailing list concerning the NSS
databases.
db-Makefile generates Berkeley-DB files from the standard passwd,
group, etc. files. I the following will stick to the passwd database.
Apparently the awk-script to generate the makedb input stream creates
three key-types to describe an entry in /etc/passwd:
1. '.<username>'
2. '=<uid>'
3. '0<serial number>'
I wonder what the serial number is used for. I guessed that there is a
convention that getXXXent() has to return entries in the same order as
they appear in /etc/passwd, which would IMHO not be a very good idea.
Leaving out the serial number entry could reduce the size of the DB by
about one third!
Regards,
Marcus
--
Some operating systems are called `user friendly',
UNIX however is `expert friendly'.
Marcus Harnisch <mailto:marcus@harnisch.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de>