FYI, just a note on the modified patch in my previous email.
If you have a modified cumin DB with an 'external' column in the Users table and you want to save the user data, you should be able to use cumin-admin export-users to save the user database.
Then apply the modified patch and reschema (or remove the external column from the User table in Postgres by hand if there is other stuff in the DB you want to keep). Now the User table will match the original schema.
Next, cumin-admin import-users <usersfile>. The updated cumin-admin should correctly add the external users back in using the zero-length password method.
Best,
Trevor
cumin-users@lists.fedorahosted.org