[KLUG Members] Time to rebuild

[Adam Williams]

> > Don't reformat /home and you should be fine on all above accounts.
> Okay, question on this: if everything EXCEPT /home is reformatted, are
> account names lost? 

Yes.

> Is there a 'best' way to restore them if this is the case? 

Don't use /etc/passwd,  use LDAP. :)  

OR you can make a copy of /etc/passwd & /etc/group before you nuke /. 
THen use adduser and friends to put them back.  

If you've got lots of users, then ask yourself why your nuking the box,
and is there a better way.

> If not, how are they preserved? I don't ask about passwords only
> because those probably should be changed on a reinstall anyway, but I
> could see that being a major issue if you had to restored, like,
dozens,
> hundreds... thousands of accounts... but anyway, and suggestions?

Don't store hundreds or thousands of accounts in a flat file.  If you do
your *@&(8 E$@(* &R@&@**@*(()@ insane anyway.  You store them in a
distributed and redundant directory service.  Be it LDAP, NIS,
whatever.  Although NIS sucks and LDAP rulez!