master.passwd -- securing

[Rhys John]

Both accounts are now active but i would like to remove the encrypted 
password from master.passwd and replace it with a *. Is this possible with 
"vipw"?

Thanks for your reply hugle

>From: hugle <hugle at vkt.lt>
>Reply-To: hugle <hugle at vkt.lt>
>To: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
>Subject: Re: master.passwd -- securing
>Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 03:39:18 -0800
>
>RJ> Ive been playing with "vipw" trying to change passwords into "*" for a
>RJ> slightly higher level of security but ran into some very big problems. 
>From
>RJ> reading through the FreeBSD handbook it seemed all i had to do was 
>replace
>RJ> the encrypted password with *, which is what i did. I thought it seemed 
>a
>RJ> bit odd but continued anyway. Foolishly (although i was quite tired) i 
>did
>RJ> this to both my user account and root. So they both had * as their 
>password
>RJ> and looked the same as every other entry in the file. I saved it and 
>"vipw"
>RJ> updated the database so i thought all was well and logged off to 
>check...
>RJ> big mistake! The net result of this was not good, i couldnt access my 
>user
>RJ> account or root :( Anyway i had to cut the power to my PC since i 
>couldnt
>RJ> shut it down because i was locked out. After that i went into single 
>user
>RJ> mode and changed the passwords back and its working now but i cant hide 
>the
>RJ> passwords. So i guess after all this rambling my question is how to i 
>secure
>RJ> the password file? How do i change from the encrypted password to * 
>without
>RJ> screwing over my system? Any help would by much appreciated
>
>try doing that:
>#Forget your root pw?
>1. Reboot. when you see the "boot" prompt, type boot -s and hit enter
>2. run this command: fsck -p / && mount -u /
>3. use the `passwd` command to set a password for root
>4. reboot, done
>
>hope that helps..
>
>
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