RSA does not 'support' changes to the Operating System on our Appliances, which basically means we do not test any manual changes to the OS and cannot predict any bad outcomes or problems. It also means if you modify Suse Linux and encounter what might be a bug, RSA Engineering will insist these modifications are undone to rule them out as the cause of the problem.
If I had to rate changes to /etc/passwd that is probably much lower risk that adding Linux software or patching or replacing existing software (you should just use RSA patches). Other customers add extra OS user accounts to individually track Admin access. Keep an original copy of the /etc/passwd file, document any changes, and be aware that RSA updates could undo what you have done.
