Dumb question about DES/MD5 in /etc/master.passwd

[João Carlos Mendes Luís]

    This question must be really dumb, but I cannot find its answer.

    In a somewhat recently updated RELENG_6 FreeBSD, whenever I run the 
program /usr/bin/passwd to change an users password, it encrypts the 
password using DES.  I have already configured /etc/login.conf for MD5, 
but it still goes with DES:

*$ grep passwd /etc/login.conf
        :passwd_format=md5:\
#       :passwd_format=des:\
$*

    What could I be doing wrong?

    If that matters, this system has been receiving system and /etc 
upgrades since Sep/2003.  Maybe some old configuration has been left 
around...

    Thanks in advance,

                                        Jonny

-- 
João Carlos Mendes Luís - Networking Engineer - jonny at jonny.eng.br