[Xastir] Re: Serial Port (ttyS0) problem

[Tate Belden]

Rodney Baker wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Jul 2007 01:30:04 xastir-request at xastir.org wrote:
>> Or you can get *REALLY* barbaric and manually edit /etc/group
>>
>> Search for the uucp line - add your username to the list.
>>
>> Originally, it looks like:
>> uucp:x:14:uucp
>>
>> Make it look like:
>> uucp:x:14:uucp,name
>> Where 'name' is your username.
> 
> Not such a good idea - then Fedora complains that /etc/group and /etc/gshadow 
> don't match which can totally stuff things up. The same thing happens if you 
> manually edit /etc/passwd - the password file and the shadow password file 
> get out of sync which can cause authentication problems.
> 
> When using shadow passwords and groups it is always much safer to use the 
> tools provided that keep things properly in sync.
> 
> I know - I found out the hard way (by manually editing /etc/group...<grin>).

Interesting as I've manually added users to the Wheel group on each of 
my dozen or so Fedora boxen and have never had a problem with it. In 
fact, looking now at /etc/gshadow, I see the changes I manually made 
have been included there too! I know I didn't do it.

But, I do agree on the passwords an problems with manually editing 
/etc/passwd. All I've ever done there is disable users by changing their 
shell to /bin/nologin. Works great!