On Fri, Apr 20, 2001 at 01:41:30AM +0100 or thereabouts, Vincent Cunniffe wrote:
> What's the difference between * and !! for the password field in
> /etc/shadow under Linux?
>> I've been poking around, and all of the standard system accounts
> such as bin, daemon, etc have *, which translates as 'No Password
> Set', and stuff such as squid or other brand-new users have their
> entries set to !!, which translates as 'Locked Password'. Neither
> can log into the system.
>> Anyone care to expound on the difference between these, and the
> security reasoning behind it?
One use I've seen for the * is to force key-pair authentication for ssh
connections. If a user account has the *, one cannot use a password to
login but one can connect with ssh and a proper key pair.
Conor
--
Conor Daly
Met Eireann, Glasnevin Hill, Dublin 9, Ireland
Ph +353 1 8064217 Fax +353 1 8064275
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