Re: installing multuple distributions

[urgrue <urgrue@bulbous.org>]

Pol wrote:
> Adam T. Bowen wrote:
> 
>> Be careful if you intend to merge the different passwd and group files
>> because different distros may use different default IDs for system
>> accounts. A fun, but maybe slightly complicated way of doing this, would
>> be to store your user accounts in LDAP and have the LDAP data files on a
>> shared partition (/home would do). Make sure all the system users (UID <
>> 100) are stored in each distribution's local /etc/passwd file and set up
>> your nsswitch.conf so that it reads files and then ldap. Of course if
>> you are only going to have one user account, then this is *way* over the
>> top (but it would certainly teach you a lot about LDAP based
>> authentication).
> 
> I am not a professional. Is there an easy way to try ldap?
> thank you
> --P

LDAP is, despite the name (Lighweight Directory Access Protocol) not
very "lightweight". Unless you already have active directory (which is
basically just ldap), I would consider something a bit simpler like
NIS+. NIS+ is pretty antiquated but if all you want is to share
passwd/group/etc information, it might be an option to consider.
There are other options too, such as Hesiod, but i havent them.