master.passwd -- securing

[Rhys John]

Ive been playing with "vipw" trying to change passwords into "*" for a 
slightly higher level of security but ran into some very big problems. From 
reading through the FreeBSD handbook it seemed all i had to do was replace 
the encrypted password with *, which is what i did. I thought it seemed a 
bit odd but continued anyway. Foolishly (although i was quite tired) i did 
this to both my user account and root. So they both had * as their password 
and looked the same as every other entry in the file. I saved it and "vipw" 
updated the database so i thought all was well and logged off to check... 
big mistake! The net result of this was not good, i couldnt access my user 
account or root :( Anyway i had to cut the power to my PC since i couldnt 
shut it down because i was locked out. After that i went into single user 
mode and changed the passwords back and its working now but i cant hide the 
passwords. So i guess after all this rambling my question is how to i secure 
the password file? How do i change from the encrypted password to * without 
screwing over my system? Any help would by much appreciated

- BiZKiT

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