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How to see the passwords in clear text ?
- Thread starter haux
- Start date
Hi,
The passwords are run through a one-way encryption algorithim and stored in /etc/shadow (second field of each row). There is no code supplied to unencrypt passwords because it would be an obvious security weakness that could make linux passwords more or less useless. The way it works is that each time someone supplies a password (e.g. login) the plain-text is run through the same algorithim as created the encrypted password in /etc/shadow. The two encrypted passwords are then compared to check for authentication.
If a user has forgotton their password you can't look it up for the above reason. The solution is that you (as root) change it to a new password :
passwd user1 (where user1 is logon name)
If, however, you want to 'crack' a password for whatever reason, there are programs out there that will ultimately use brute-force to try to obtain the password. Thats cracking though and not really appropriate to this forum....
Regards
The passwords are run through a one-way encryption algorithim and stored in /etc/shadow (second field of each row). There is no code supplied to unencrypt passwords because it would be an obvious security weakness that could make linux passwords more or less useless. The way it works is that each time someone supplies a password (e.g. login) the plain-text is run through the same algorithim as created the encrypted password in /etc/shadow. The two encrypted passwords are then compared to check for authentication.
If a user has forgotton their password you can't look it up for the above reason. The solution is that you (as root) change it to a new password :
passwd user1 (where user1 is logon name)
If, however, you want to 'crack' a password for whatever reason, there are programs out there that will ultimately use brute-force to try to obtain the password. Thats cracking though and not really appropriate to this forum....
Regards
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