Multiple-machine passwd file maintenance

[Bill Mitchell]

We have several machines and more on the way and it seems that adding users
and maintaining the various passwd files is consuming a non-trivial amount
of our time.  It seems to me that the correct way to handle this problem
is to maintain a centralized database of passwd related information (in
textual form) on one machine and to generate passwd files for the other
machines from this common file on demand.  Naturally, there are some tricky
points with this scheme such as mapping back user-made modifications to the
passwd files on the remote machines.

Does anyone have existing software that implements this type of maintenance
system?

					Bill Mitchell
					whm.arizona at csnet-relay
					{noao,mcnc,utah-cs}!arizona!whm