How do you manage multiple /etc/passwd files?

[agm at warwick.UUCP]

In article <660 at mcgill-vision.UUCP> mouse at mcgill-vision.UUCP (der Mouse)
writes:
>We run a distributed filesystem (Sun's and Mt. Xinu's NFS
>implementations at present) and all but one of them are symbolic links
>to the other...

What happens is users on different machines try to change their passwords at
the same time?  Does the password file get locked properly?

Andrew G. Minter