From owner-freebsd-questions Fri Feb 2 7:31:49 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from post.mail.nl.demon.net (post-11.mail.nl.demon.net [194.159.73.21]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8C98A37B401 for ; Fri, 2 Feb 2001 07:31:30 -0800 (PST) Received: from [195.11.243.26] (helo=Debug) by post.mail.nl.demon.net with smtp (Exim 3.14 #4) id 14OiBN-0002XO-00; Fri, 02 Feb 2001 15:31:29 +0000 To: "DINKEY,GENE (HP-Loveland,ex1)" , "'Cliff Sarginson'" , freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG From: Cliff Sarginson Subject: RE: UID at login time Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2001 15:31:29 GMT X-Mailer: www.webmail.nl.demon.net X-Sender: postmaster@btvs.demon.nl X-Originating-IP: 192.250.25.251 Message-Id: Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > > This is not the reason for the existance of master.passwd. > > It is is security feature, not a backup procedure. > > This is an implementation of shadow passwords. The real > > ecnrypted passwords are kept in the master.passwd file, which > > is only readable by root. > > The passwd file is world readable (it has to be) but should > > not contain > > the encrypted passwords in order to prevent brute force > > crackign attempts > > > That may be the case but either way you cannot (in most instances) edit > /etc/passwd directly and expect it to do what you want. AFAIK the only > "acceptable" method of modifying /etc/passwd is through vipw. As I > mentioned earlier - this is to ensure that /etc/passwd and > /etc/master.passwd are in sync. Errm. yes.. what I say doesn't contradict what you say..it just broadens the explanation out a bit.. Cliff To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message