MSYS2 on Windows 7 VM Post: 302947366

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Special Forums Windows & DOS: Issues & Discussions MSYS2 on Windows 7 VM Post 302947366 by mrm5102 on Wednesday 17th of June 2015 12:54:00 PM

06-17-2015

Registered User

Bump....

Update:
Not sure I did this correctly or if it's going to mess anything up later on down the road, but I made a slight workaround... Haven't actually changed the existing Username, which I want to do but after reading some stuff for Cygwin, which is what MSYS is built off of I believe, it said the User in Cygwin is directly linked to that of your Window's User. So any files/folders will also be owned by your Windows User, or something along those lines...

But anyway, since MSYS does not create a /etc/passwd file, I ran the command

Code:

/usr/bin/mkpasswd  >  /etc/passwd

which created the passwd file using all existing user information. Then I simply modified the HOME dir portion of my User's line in /etc/passwd to a 'first intial last name' format, like "/home/flastname".

Then I copied everything from the old HOME dir to the new one using these 2 commands. Needed both because the first cp did not copy hidden files...

Code:

# cp -R /home/First*/* /home/flastname/
# cp -R /home/First*/.* /home/flastname/

After I did all that and I opened a new MSYS terminal, I was automatically taken to the NEW home dir by default.

I would still love to be able to change the Username itself if at all possible, but still have not found any instructions on how to do so.

I did however read an interesting article on someone trying to do this with Cygwin and what they did was:
1st) They installed Cygwin completely.
2nd) After the installation and before opening Cygwin for the first time they said they opened "/etc/passwd" and found the line containing their default Window's User and changed the username to something without whitespace, like the first initial and lastname format.
3rd) They opened the Cygwin terminal for the first time and Ta-Da, the new username was used instead...

Does that sound like something I should try? Could something like that mess-up anything else? Maybe file permissions, or something along those lines...? I would just hate to have to re-download any packages I've installed or re-do any modifications I made to the system already

Or... Maybe there is a way to "trick" MSYS into thinking it's the first time I'm opening MSYS and I could try the above, any idea..?

Thanks,
Matt

mrm5102

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vipw

vipw(8) 						      System Manager's Manual							   vipw(8)

NAME

       vipw - Edits the /etc/passwd file

SYNOPSIS

       /usr/sbin/vipw

DESCRIPTION

       You  use  the vipw command to edit the /etc/passwd file with the editor defined in the EDITOR environment variable.  If the variable is not
       set, the default editor is vi.

       The vipw command performs basic consistency checks on the edited file.  If a hashed indexed passwd existed  previously,	the  vipw  command
       uses the mkpasswd command to create recreate it.

       The  command must not be used on systems that use extended security attributes since it cannot set or change them.  You must be root to run
       this command.  Only root and security administrators should have execute access to this command.

       Since the vipw command cannot effectively change all the attributes of users, it should not be used in a secure environment.

       The vipw command accesses the following files, and requires the listed permissions:

       ------------------------------
       Permissions   File
       ------------------------------
	   rw	     /etc/passwd

	   rw	     /etc/passwd.pag

	   rw	     /etc/passwd.dir

	   rw	     /etc/ptmp

	   rw	     /etc/ptmp.pag

	   rw	     /etc/ptmp.dir
       ------------------------------

EXAMPLE

       To edit the /etc/passwd file, type the following command and add the required line entry: vipw

FILES

       Specifies the command path

RELATED INFORMATION

       Commands:  passwd(1), passwd(4), adduser(8), mkpasswd(8) delim off

																	   vipw(8)