In /etc/passwd file what does the * mean in the password field? 4

[pinkyball]

Ex.

fakeuser:*:4:4::/var/fakeuser:/sbin/sh

There is no /etc/shadow diectory found. Is this no password or encrypted password or what?

Any ideas?

 

[bi]

The asterisk in the second field means the user has never logged in. Once the user does log in and they change their password, the field contains the encrypted password they enter.

 

[patel]

I am not agree with BI. It is not that. if you looks in to the /etc/passwd file you will see the * for bin, sys , lpd, nobody and so on.

Sachin

 

[Guest_imported]

the star denotes that you have some sort of 'enhanced' password security going on.
The second field in the /etc/passwd file is used to store the password.
You may try looking to see if you have /etc/shadow
if so, then that is where the user passwords are bing stored. If you do not have /etc/shadow, then you have some other form of enhanced password security.

 

[crowe]

The * in the passwd field, if listed for all users, indicates that you are using C2 security on your HP system. Otherwise known as "trusted". The encrypted password(s) are stored in /tcb/files/auth/. From here there are 52 directories or so named all the letters in the alphabet, upper and lower case. With in these directories there is a file for every user in the /etc/passwd file. This file contains the encrypted password and other user restrictions, like login times, valid HW, so on sn so forth. If the HP system was not using C2 security, you would see the encrypted password's in the /etc/passwd file. I believe HP stopped using the /etc/shadow file after the 9.04 version of HP-UX.

crowe

 

[MikeLacey]

If you're not using a shadow passwd file the * means that the user-id is locked and cannot be used to login. Mike
michael.j.lacey@ntlworld.com
Email welcome if you're in a hurry or something -- but post in tek-tips as well please, and I will post my reply here as well.

 

[edcpocketpc]

when a user leaves our company I vi the password file and put in a * a saw a article and they recommended doing this to have password disabled.

 

[unixqueen]

I agree with Mike, the * represents that the password is locked with #passwd -l username.

Queenie