From owner-freebsd-questions Thu Jun 7 13: 2:14 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from ren.sasknow.com (ren.sasknow.com [207.195.92.131]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B23FA37B406 for ; Thu, 7 Jun 2001 13:02:07 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from ryan@sasknow.com) Received: from localhost (ryan@localhost) by ren.sasknow.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id OAA00380; Thu, 7 Jun 2001 14:02:05 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from ryan@sasknow.com) Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2001 14:02:05 -0600 (CST) From: Ryan Thompson To: Brooks Hanley Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Password Database In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Organization: SaskNow Technologies [www.sasknow.com] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Brooks Hanley wrote to freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG: > How is it that when passwd and master.passwd are renamed, login is > still possible by root after restart? master.passwd is just the source text file that is compiled to form the password database. It is not directly used by the system at all. passwd is just another copy of master.passwd with passwords removed. The file pwd.db is the "insecure" password database--it contains all user information, names, home directories, shells, etc, but does not contain encrypted passwords. This file is world readable, and is used by certain utilities to fetch and display user information. The file spwd.db is the "secure" password database--it contains everything pwd.db does, but also contains encrypted passwords. Using standard auth, this file will be consulted during the login sequence. Due to the storage of passwords, this file should only be readable by root. - Ryan -- Ryan Thompson Network Administrator, Accounts SaskNow Technologies - http://www.sasknow.com #106-380 3120 8th St E - Saskatoon, SK - S7H 0W2 Tel: 306-664-3600 Fax: 306-664-1161 Saskatoon Toll-Free: 877-727-5669 (877-SASKNOW) North America To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message