Hi >time for the next project i suppose; >getting linux machines to share a passwd file and a >/home directory of a server... (kindof a bit more than >a terminal/diskless workstation and less than a >standslone PC...) Since you have ssh running, I'd think sharing a password file is not a good idea. Before putting ssh in, I used to run ftp on the password file to various machines that I wanted to update. User home dirs were all the same for those machines, but ~root was individual, as was all the os files, including passwd. Scp could be used to distribute the file as well as doing pwconv, thus hopefully keeping ipspoofing (nfs or whatever) out of the equation. Apologies if I don't understand what you're really trying to do. Ed Hoeffner 1-271 BSBE 312 Church St. SE Mpls, MN 55455 hoeffner at dcmir.med.umn.edu 612-625-2115 612-625-2163 fax