Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!rutgers!cmcl2!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: questions about /etc/passwd
Message-ID: <11585@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Date: 10 Nov 89 19:42:44 GMT
References: <2666@munnari.oz.au>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 9

In article <2666@munnari.oz.au> shek@mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU (Wilson SHEK) writes:
>	daemon:*:1:1:the UniX Daemon:/:
>Who/what are they? Does the '*' in the password field have any meaning?

Such accounts serve as "owners" of various system files.
Some of them, notably daemon, may have executables set-UID to them.

The * does not match any ecnrypted password, thereby guaranteeing
that nobody can log in as one of these pseudo-users.