On Feb 13 17:09, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
> On Feb 13 09:48, Steven Penny wrote:
> > On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 8:38 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
> > > For as long as Cygwin has existed, it has stored user and group
> > > information in /etc/passwd and /etc/group files.  Under the assumption
> > > that these files would never be too large, the first process in a
> > > process tree, as well as every execing process within the tree would
> > > parse them into structures in memory.  Thus every Cygwin process would
> > > contain an expanded copy of the full information from /etc/passwd and
> > > /etc/group.
> > 
> > Stellar writeup! I read the whole post. I am happy to help, but I have couple of
> > questions
> > 
> > - How will this affect "normal" users, that is to say one admin user on one
> >   computer with no domain or networking? Will it be better to use this new
> >   system or keep /etc/passwd?
> 
> That should have been clear from the writeup.  Just continue to use
> /etc/passwd and /etc/group if you're not comfortable to change your
> local SAM.  But my mail also contains examples how to change your SAM
> entry from the CMD or bach command line.
> 
> > - Do you have any benchmarks available? Or instructions on how we could test the
> >   speed of the new system?
> 
> Nope.  Try something time-consuming you're doing every day under
> time(1), I guess.  Building some project or so.  But first get
> comfortable with the new output of `id' and `ls -l' in some
> environments.  I'm all for performance, but functionality first, please.

Btw., for completeness, here's a /etc/nsswitch.conf file with comments,
with everything set to the default values.  Again, note that the file is
optional and only needed if you want to diverge from the defaults:

========= SNIP ==========
# /etc/nsswitch.conf
#
#    This file is read once by the first process in a Cygwin process tree.
#    To pick up changes, restart all Cygwin processes.
#
# passwd:
# group:
#
#    "files"	only use /etc/passwd or /etc/group file.
#    "db"	only use SAM/AD retrieval.
#    "files db"	both, files preferred.  This is the default.
#
#    "db files"	does not make any sense
#
passwd: files db
group:  files db
#
# Configuration of "db" style passwd/group handling:
#
# db_prefix:
#
#    "auto" 	If "auto", prepend domain to account name if the account
#		is not a member of the machine's primary domain.  Prepend
#		just the separator char if the account is a well-known
#		or builtin group.
#
#    "primary" 	"primary" is like "auto", but prepend domain to account name
#		as well, if the account is a member of the machine's primary
#		domain.
#
#    "always" 	If set to "always", always prepend domain, even for
#		well-known and builtin accounts.
#
db_prefix: auto
#
# db_cache:
#
#    "yes" 	If yes, cache once retrieved DB values in local process,
#		hand cache down to child processes.  This is the default.
#
#    "no"	If no, fetch passwd or group entries anew, every time an
#		entry is requested.
#
db_cache: yes
#
#  db_separator:
#
#		Set separator character between domain and account name to
#		the ASCII char X.  Default is '+'.
#
db_separator: +
========= SNAP ==========


Corinna

-- 
Corinna Vinschen                  Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to
Cygwin Maintainer                 cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Red Hat