/etc/shadow question

[ronfitz1]

RedHat 9 server:

from /etc: ls | grep shadow shows me the following:

gshadow
gshadow-
shadow
shadow-

what is the meaning of the dash?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[ericbrunson]

They are backup files.

 

[ronfitz1]

Thanks. I have a proprietary RH 8.0 box that finishes a ftp backup with errors because it can't find that file (it doesn't exist). It really shouldn't be an issue then correct?

Thanks again.

 

[lgarner]

I doube it. Of course, you could always

cd /etc
cp -p shadow shadow-
cp -p gshadow shadow-

 

[flugh]

Is it possible the ftp process is chrooted, and it's looking for shadow in <ftp chroot dir>/etc ?

----
JBR

 

[ronfitz1]

I think the problem is that the cust never changed the admin password. This change creates the "dash" file.

Thanks for the help.