How are shadow files updated?

bleistein · 07-30-2003, 12:06 PM

I have installed redhat 8.0. Created several user accounts with passwords. I find files such as passwd and passwd-, shadow and shadow-, gshadow and gshadow-. Each group does not seem to be in sync. Example:
/etc/passwd has 2,382 characters
/etc/passwd- has 2,344 characters and does not contain the last user generated by the adduser utility.

My questions are:

* When and how are these files updated to reflect each other.
* How are they used in a recovery mode, what triggers their use.

unSpawn · 08-01-2003, 12:53 PM

When and how are these files updated to reflect each other.
Once the (insert adjectives here) app you are changing passwd/shadow entries with (Linuxconf in this case) is satisfied it has made the changes to the original, it will not do *anything* with those backups except leave them around to pollute your pristine /etc dir with...

How are they used in a recovery mode, what triggers their use.
AFAIK, not, nothing.