cvs commit: src/share/man/man5 passwd.5

Gavin Atkinson gavin.atkinson at ury.york.ac.uk
Sun Sep 18 12:17:02 PDT 2005


On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, Giorgos Keramidas wrote:

> keramida    2005-09-18 15:40:02 UTC
>
>  Modified files:
>    share/man/man5       passwd.5
>  Log:
>  Explain the use of `*' in master.passwd and that it's slightly
>  different from the use of `*' in /etc/passwd.

+.Nm master.passwd
+file, a password of
+.Ql *
+is used to indicate that no one can ever log into that account.
+The field only contains encrypted passwords, and
+.Ql *
+can never be the result of encrypting a password.

This is not strictly true - all it prevents is logins using passwords. 
Passwordless logins using SSH public keys (for example) are unaffected.

Perhaps the attached patch chould be committed?

Gavin
-------------- next part --------------
--- passwd.5.old	Sun Sep 18 16:40:02 2005
+++ passwd.5	Sun Sep 18 20:15:16 2005
@@ -110,7 +110,9 @@
 .Nm master.passwd
 file, a password of
 .Ql *
-is used to indicate that no one can ever log into that account.
+is used to indicate that no one can ever log into that account
+using passwords.
+Passwordless logins will not be prevented.
 The field only contains encrypted passwords, and
 .Ql *
 can never be the result of encrypting a password.


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