[gentoo-user] /etc/shadow syntax

[Hans Hvelplund Odborg]

I can't seem to find any official documentation on /etc/shadow syntax.
Searching google I find loads of conflicting explantions of the meaning of
x,!,!!,* in the password field.

man 5 shadow only says:
The password field must be filled. The encryped password consists of 13 to
24 characters from the 64 character alphabet a thru z, A thru Z, 0 thru 9,
interpreted.

At this point i'm getting pretty frustrated search for documentation. So
what is it? And how did you find out?

-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] /etc/shadow syntax

[Michael Kjorling]

On 2005-06-06 15:51 +0200, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 I can't seem to find any official documentation on /etc/shadow syntax.
 Searching google I find loads of conflicting explantions of the meaning of
 x,!,!!,* in the password field.

The given password is encrypted, and then compared to whatever is in
the password field in /etc/shadow (or /etc/passwd). If they match, the
password is valid. So entering anything that cannot be valid into the
password field means that no password will be valid.

Whether you choose to use x, !, !!, * or some other variant is up to
you. Yes, x works in this case too since it is too short to be a
salt followed by an encrypted password.
 
-- 
Michael Kjörling, [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://michael.kjorling.com/
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