topic checking for multiple user in /etc/passwd file. in Operating System - HP-UX

checking for multiple user in /etc/passwd file.

tempsample — Sat, 17 Aug 2013 18:57:40 GMT

Hi,

I need to check multiple user registered in server.

I have a basic script like :

hostlist=/hometestuser/source
username=/hometestuser/source
HOMEDIR=/hometestuser/source
for HOST in `cat hostlist`
do
echo "====================================================" >> ${HOMEDIR}/logfile.txt
echo " "
echo "$HOST" >> ${HOMEDIR}/logfile.txt
ssh $HOST grep `cat username` /etc/passwd >> ${HOMEDIR}/logfile.txt
done
echo "=====================================================" >> ${HOMEDIR}/logfile.txt

$$$$$$$

I will be getting the username and hostlist from a file.

When I running for multiple user , I am getting error.

>>ssh $HOST grep `cat username` /etc/passwd >> ${HOMEDIR}/logfile.txt

ssh testhost grep ---> it is reading all username in the file as below.

ssh testhost grep user1 user2 /etc/passwd

i want to add -e to grep or need to know any other option is available or not ?

Re: checking for multiple user in /etc/passwd file.

Bill Hassell — Sat, 17 Aug 2013 20:23:55 GMT

There are several problems with the concept. First, grep must always be protected from finding the wrong matches. If you have a username of bill, then it will find every line where usernames like bill, billy, waybill, billh, etc are located, but worse, grep doesn't stop at the username -- it will match comments, even a home directory like /home/billing or /home/dashbill.

So start by testing your grep locally. To match just the username (which always starts in column 1), anchor the search to the beginning of each line:

grep ^bill /etc/passwd

But that is not enough. grep will still find bill and billh which are not duplicates. So extend the search to the mandatory colon (:) at the end of the name, like this:

grep ^bill: /etc/passwd

Now for multiple matches, the -e works fine, or you an use egrep with extended regular expressions but I find the multiple bars and extra quotes a bit confusing read when checking scripts. Here are both ways:

grep -e ^bill: -e ^joe: -e ^mary: -e ^jennifer: /etc/passwd

egrep  "^bill:|^joe:|^mary:|^jennifer:" /etc/passwd

Now creating a grep pattern list like this is a bit tricky but can be done.

So the question is:

Are you looking for duplicate user names or duplicate user ID numbers?

For duplicate usernames, you can do something like this:

cut -d: -f1 /etc/passwd | sort | uniq -c
or 
cut -d: -f1 /etc/passwd | sort | uniq -c | grep -v " 1 "
(shows only duplicate usernames)

But to find duplicate user ID's (UID), just run:

logins -d

Re: checking for multiple user in /etc/passwd file.

Dennis Handly — Sat, 17 Aug 2013 21:16:23 GMT

>hostlist=/hometestuser/source
>username=/hometestuser/source
>HOMEDIR=/hometestuser/source

Should this be:

hostlist=${HOMEDIR}/hostlist?

username=${HOMEDIR}/username?

>for HOST in `cat hostlist`; do

To remove evil cats, change to:

for HOST in $(< $hostlist); do

If every output is to the same file, you can redirect the whole for loop:
   echo "===================================================="
   echo "$HOST"
   ssh $HOST grep $(< $username) /etc/passwd
done >> ${HOMEDIR}/logfile.txt

Note: The above grep is going to get ALL of the names on one line and that won't work. You can use -f file but then that file must be on $HOST. Bill mentioned creating multiple "-e name" patterns on the command line. But it may be easier to just copy the /etc/passwd file back to this machine to process.

scp $host:/etc/passwd passwd.${HOST}

grep -f $username passwd.${HOST}

But based on Bill's comments, you should have the anchors already in $username:

^joe:

^sam:

You can of course process the original file and create a temp file with that format:

sed -e 's/$.*$/^\1:/' $username > $username.tmp

>For duplicate usernames, you can do something like this:

Except for logins(1m), those cut(1) commands would work better on the passwd copied back to the source machine.

Re: checking for multiple user in /etc/passwd file.

tempsample — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 17:01:10 GMT

Hi,

Thanks Bill and Dennis for suggestion.

from your comment , I can understand that ,in username file i have to add -e

some thing like this

cat username

-e user1

-e user2

or I have to use some anchor .

but my requirement is , In username file it should be in the below format.

cat username

user1

user2

Re: checking for multiple user in /etc/passwd file.

Dennis Handly — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 18:33:52 GMT

>In username file it should be in the below format.

My above post showed you how to use sed to change the file format. A slight modification will add -e and anchors:

grep $(sed 's/$.*$/-e ^\1:/' $username) passwd.${HOST}