Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!mimsy!oddjob!uwvax!rutgers!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!tektronix!cae780!amdcad!lll-crg!lll-lcc!unisoft!greywolf From: greywolf@unisoft.UUCP (The Grey Wolf @ ext 165) Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions Subject: Re: Passwords in /etc/group Message-ID: <462@unisoft.UUCP> Date: Tue, 21-Jul-87 21:19:07 EDT Article-I.D.: unisoft.462 Posted: Tue Jul 21 21:19:07 1987 Date-Received: Fri, 24-Jul-87 03:34:14 EDT References: <5740010@hpfcdc.HP.COM> <207@macom1.UUCP> <3671@cisunx.UUCP> <2812@ncoast.UUCP> Reply-To: greywolf@unisoft.UUCP (The Grey Wolf @ ext 165) Organization: UniSoft Systems; Berkeley, CA Lines: 38 In article <2812@ncoast.UUCP> allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery) writes: >As quoted from <3671@cisunx.UUCP> by nk233514@cisunx.UUCP (Deus): >+--------------- >| In article <207@macom1.UUCP> michael@macom1.UUCP (Michael Mullins) writes: >| >Once the password is assigned, I "vi /etc/passwd" and yank the password >| One thing I'd like to pas along i to use vipw, not vi, to edit the passwd >| file. >+--------------- > >BSD has "vipw". Sys3, SysV, Xenix, etc. DON'T. (Someone want to come up >with a PD version? --mailed to security@rutgers rather than posted, perhaps. >It does decrypt passwords, I believe?) -------- I don't know of a routine that decrypts passwords, as such a routine would be considered dangerous to system security. All vipw does is provide a locking mechanism of a very primitive nature so that nobody can run a passwd/chfn/chsh while vipw is in effect. The same is true of each of those programs...if one is writing to the passwd file, another will print the message "progname: passwd temp file busy." Hope that helped... The Grey Wolf -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Faster than pure assembly code... More powerful than kill -9... able to unmount busy file systems in a single call... ______ it's a (long) word... / | | \ it's a (back)plane... \=#==#=/ \| |/ it's... \==/ \/ SUPERUSER!!!! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------