Just checked how passwd command behaves when tried to change the passwd for a user who has two entries in /etc/passwd and the first one being commented. This I did in one of commercial distribution of unix and to my surprise it asks to change passwd for the commented user. I find tht somehow passwd command matches the first commented entry and prompts as below,
Changing password for #senthil
Old password:
Also at this juncture with the commercial version I checked the ownership of somefiles owned by user senthil. It displays as below,
-rw------- 1 #senthil <grp> <file name>
But In Linux for same scenario,
-rw------- 1 117 <grp> <file> (username replaced by uid)
In OpenBSD (its great and retains the username)
-rw------- 1 senthil <grp> <file> (remain as it is)
So a common situation which give rise to 2 bugs.
I remember a quote, "Finding and fixing the bugs enhance the software". I think im not comfortable with PERL tht much and started making me good in that. This is the last working day of the Year 2005. Hey, Have FUN.