Pushing passwd, group and shadow files can just be scripted to scp them from one master machine to all the client nodes. an ssh key can be used with the private key only existing on the master node so only it can push out changes (protect it with your life as this has the potential to be a nasty hole) on a regular basis. remove passwd from all slave nodes and replace it with a script that either says to go to the master and change their password there or have it feed their input to the master via an ssh tunnel to have the change made. I see by Lustre's site that is supports MIT kerberos for authentication. this would be better then pushing out shadow, you would still need a tool to push out user id's though, ldap could handle this part as they are typically handled together, and if Lustre recognizes PAM then it should be transparent to it. A quick google search shows that Googlecode.com has a document suggesting ldap and kerb. http://lustrecluster.googlecode.com/files/LustreHowTo.pdf -----Original Message----- From: centos-bounces at centos.org [mailto:centos-bounces at centos.org] On Behalf Of Carlos Santana Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2009 8:46 AM To: CentOS mailing list Subject: Re: [CentOS] etc passwd and groups file I intend to install lustre file system on the systems. It does not support LDAP and need to have etc passwd/groups database. All file system clients need to have same passwd and groups so that UID and GID are the same when they contact file system server. So I am not sure, how will I manage this. Any suggestions? - CS. On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 10:38 AM, John R Pierce<pierce at hogranch.com> wrote: > Carlos Santana wrote: >> Hi, >> >> I need to maintain a same user/group list on multiples systems. Can we >> just copy the same passwd and groups file on all machines? >> If we create a new user on one system then I will need to copy this to >> all other systems. This is quite cumbersome. Any suggestions? >> > > > the old fashion way of doing this was NIS ... but I'm with everyone else > in saying go with LDAP directory services, and further, use a NFS > automount for their home directories. > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos > _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS at centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos