Comments on: Understanding /etc/passwd File Format

By: Jim

Jim — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 17:41:03 +0000

Excuse me – “+” should not be there

By: Jim

Jim — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 17:40:25 +0000

Anyone know what this means in Linux SLES 11 and can it be removed – audit says it should be there:
[root@imnalx0277 etc]# cat /etc/passwd |grep +
+::::::

By: sunil Meher

sunil Meher — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 18:42:27 +0000

we can change the permission of the file /etc/passwd using the command chmod

By: sunil Meher

sunil Meher — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 18:34:36 +0000

If the second field in /etc/passwd file is set with “*” then the password is disabled for the respective user

By: Jurieka

Jurieka — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 08:27:48 +0000

What does it mean if the second field (password) in the /etc/passwd file is “!” but the /etc/shadow file is not in use and the 7th field is /usr/bin/ksh?

By: Jurieka

Jurieka — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 08:25:24 +0000

Similar to Jenny’s question… what if the second field (password) in the /etc/passwd file is “*” but the /etc/shadow file is not in use?

By: blaze

blaze — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 06:07:28 +0000

thanks! btb,. I was asked wrt Solaris. I answered the question in an uncertain tone.. “sticky bit”. But the devil’s son smiled as if in mockery.. and i quit answering further. damn that fellow!!

By: Dennis

Dennis — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 16:49:44 +0000

Excellent question.
Short answer: While there are slight variations dependent on the specific version of unix the basic approach is the same and has the same answer for many “privileged” operations that can be performed by a user on their own objects.
under redhat-linux-gnu
which passwd displays /usr/bin/passwd
ls -l /usr/bin/passwd
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 27936 Aug 11 2010 /usr/bin/passwd
notice that the password program is owned by root and that the mode (aka permissions) include the “SETUID” bit. This causes the password program to have the effective user ID of root when it runs. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setuid

By: Dennis

Dennis — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 16:41:39 +0000

Excellent question.
Short answer: While there are slight variations dependent on the specific version of unix the basic approach is the same and has the same answer for many “privileged” operations that can be performed by a user on their own objects.
under redhat-linux-gnu
which passwd displays /usr/bin/passwd
ls -l /usr/bin/passwd
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 27936 Aug 11 2010 /usr/bin/passwd
notice that the password program is owned by root and that the mode (aka permissions) include the “sticky” bit. This causes the password program to have the effective user ID of root when it runs. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setuid

By: blaze

blaze — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 11:39:03 +0000

A user can change his own password.. That being the case, how does the passwd file which is owned by root, get modified??
I was asked this question in an interview and it left me puzzled. Any ideas people!?

By: laka

laka — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 21:52:45 +0000

how can i generate that encrypted passwds …

means i want to assign a passwd to a user eg. laka is qwerty

then how can i encrypt dis string(qwerty)

as i want to make a entry of dis encrypted passwd in the shadow file manually…

plzz help me out… :)

By: marwen

marwen — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 10:54:24 +0000

- system call is a call of a service to be done by the kernel, it’s executed in the kernel address space.

- a library function call is done by “importing” (linking) the (library/function) code to the user’s program, and it’s executed in the user address space.

By: DG12

DG12 — Tue, 03 May 2011 12:18:08 +0000

What flavor of unix are you using? linux, bsd darwin (Mac) aix hpux …
What distribution are your using?

By: DG12

DG12 — Tue, 03 May 2011 12:15:21 +0000

pico is a little tiny editor.
nano is even littler and tinyer editor

By: gunjankapoor

gunjankapoor — Tue, 03 May 2011 09:54:28 +0000

The is a id thru which i can login but when i check it in /etc/passwd, its not there.
Any one knows the reason?

By: badhan

badhan — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 12:29:24 +0000

what is pico in linux

By: jitender

jitender — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 00:14:41 +0000

Very nice and usefull information

thanks a lot

I appriciate this one..
Blessings…

By: DG12

DG12 — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 23:33:13 +0000

“I wish to change it” seeks to indicate that you can log on.
use
passwd

You will be prompted for your current password.
This prevents someone else from changing your password if you walked away and were still logged in.

Detailed info on your system is in the man pages since different versions of *unix are different in their requirements.

man passwd

By: John E

John E — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 21:57:46 +0000

How do I change my user account password on my computer? I am using linux a friend put it on my computer for me but I wish to chage the password and dont know how to do it? can anyone help me?

By: Bel

Bel — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 18:42:19 +0000

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