[tech] Re: [wheel] annoying cache misfeature

[Ben Rampling]

> The problem is, I guess, that the current add_fms script is a quick
> hack and the whole add/remove/change user thing still isn't adequately
> finished. Further, it's run on mussel, so there's not a direct way to
> cause a random mermaid commands to be run at the moment.
> 
> On February 26th, add_ucc was modified to run /usr/local/sbin/mkcache,
> then /usr/local/sbin/mkdbm, as is required on mermaid after editing the
> passwd file. (if you use vipw, it will happen automagically)

This isn't aimed at Nick in particular, who actually knows what's going on:

add_fms shouldn't be trying to run anything like mkcache. Consider what it
does before trying to make it do so.

If binaries need to be run before or after password updates, look at
/etc/fmm.conf on beige and see how beige does things. You need a line
such as;

PostUpdateCommand       /usr/bin/niload passwd / < /etc/passwd_import

or in the case of mermaid, just;

PostUpdateCommand       /usr/local/sbin/mkcache
PostUpdateCommand       /usr/local/sbin/mkdbm

Note that the above commands never see a shell -- the redirections are
handled internally, globbing will not work, and the file references
should be absolute.

Don't make anything other than the fmmd monitor for the database backend do
changes in response to new or modified accounts -- the results will almost
always be poor hacks.

Regards,
Ben Rampling