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From: mpl@sfsup.UUCP (M.P.Lindner)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Passwords in /etc/group
Message-ID: <1682@sfsup.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 23-Jul-87 19:00:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: sfsup.1682
Posted: Thu Jul 23 19:00:34 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 25-Jul-87 12:58:18 EDT
References: <5740010@hpfcdc.HP.COM> <207@macom1.UUCP> <3671@cisunx.UUCP> <462@unisoft.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T-IS, Summit N.J. USA
Lines: 29
Summary: Sys V has makekey

In article <462@unisoft.UUCP>, greywolf@unisoft.UUCP (The Grey Wolf @ ext 165) writes:
: 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."

I may be coming into this discussion late, but if you're lloking for a way to
get an encrypted password to put into /ect/group (which is what it sounds like the
original poster had in mind, System V users can use "/usr/lib/makekey".  It's in
the manual.  It takes a password and makes the ugly 14 character string out of it
that you normally see in between the ::'s in /etc/passwd-like files.