Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!rice!sun-spots-request From: zwicky@pterodactyl.cis.ohio-state.edu (Elizabeth D. Zwicky) Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun Subject: Re: bug in yppasswd Message-ID: <28103@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> Date: 2 Dec 88 23:34:26 GMT References: <2161@kalliope.rice.edu> Sender: usenet@rice.edu Organization: Rice University, Houston, Texas Lines: 16 Approved: Sun-Spots@rice.edu Original-Date: 21 Nov 88 21:18:28 GMT X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 7, Issue 34, message 2 of 12 X-Issue-Reference: v7n17 About yppasswd: We have reason to believe that yppasswd goes through the database using getpwent in a loop instead of getpwuid once. This would result not only in the symptom we saw (speed deteriorates in a geometrical progression as the password file gets larger), but also in the one mentioned where password changes match on substrings. You might be able to avoid it by sorting your password file into reverse alphabetic order. On Hewlett-Packards this problem happens not only in yppasswd but also in finger. You may also have problems with rpc.yppasswdd, which in SunOS 3.5 dies if anyone tries to change a password while the password file is locked. This is a significant problem for us at the beginning of quarters, when users (using yppasswd) and operators (using an account program which locks the password file) are both changing things often. Elizabeth Zwicky (zwicky@cis.ohio-state.edu)