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From: perry@ccssrv.UUCP (Perry Hutchison)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: questions about /etc/passwd
Message-ID: <816@ccssrv.UUCP>
Date: 11 Nov 89 02:28:41 GMT
References: <2666@munnari.oz.au>
Reply-To: perry@ccssrv.UUCP (Perry Hutchison)
Organization: Control-C Software, Inc., Beaverton, OR
Lines: 26

In article <2666@munnari.oz.au> shek@mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU (Wilson SHEK) writes:

>	In the /etc/passwd file, there are some strange entries ...

>	daemon:*:1:1:the UniX Daemon:/:
>	sys:*:2:2::/:/bin/csh
>	bin:*:3:3::/bin:
>	uucp:*:4:4::/var/spool/uucppublic:
>	news:*:6:6::/var/spool/news:/bin/csh

>	Who/what are they? Does the '*' in the password field have any meaning?

This is approximate.  flames >/dev/null

daemon  Owner of print despoolers and other automatic processes
sys     Owner of some SYStem stuff
bin     Owner of most of the system BINaries
uucp    Unix to Unix CoPy program -- dialup email and news transporter
news    The news system

Your mileage may vary, especially as to finding files and/or processes
which are actually owned by the first three of these.  In some systems,
most such files and processes are owned by root instead.

The * will not match any possible password, thereby preventing logins to
these "user" id's.