[vox-tech] Can a username be changed?

[Jeff Newmiller]

On Sun, 9 Feb 2003, Bill Kendrick wrote:

> 
> Is there a way to change a user's login name under Unix?

such a question... ;)

> Is it safe enough to simply rename their home directory and
> edit their entry in /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow?

Safe enough, because security is managed by UID through those files, but
maybe not quite complete enough.

I would also make sure to rename their mail spool file, and do a 
find /etc -type f | xargs grep oldusername
to find places like the sudo configuration files that might reference
their usernames.  Other applications like "mysql" or "samba" might also
maintain parallel configurations for that username.

> Or am I dealing with dangerous powers, and would be safe enough
> creating a brand new user and deleting the old one?

You would _still_ need to dig for references to their old username in your
mail configuration files, etc. if you tried copying to a new username to
restore all their old configurations, so I don't think that is necessarily
any safer.

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