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From: aeba-im-o-e2@berlin-emh1.army.mil ( IM EMAIL ASST SYS ADMIN)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re:  What does '*' symbol in /etc/passwd means?
Message-ID: <27106@adm.brl.mil>
Date: 4 Jun 91 12:52:30 GMT
Sender: news@adm.brl.mil
Lines: 21

>From: KiChang Yang <e910276@dal1.kaist.ac.kr>
>Subject: What does '*' symbol in /etc/passwd means?
>
>I'm much interested in UNIX system.
>Recently, I found this '*' curios symbol in /etc/passwd.
>For example,
>	bin:*:2:1::/bin:/bin/csh
>Could you tell me what this symbol means?

Someone answered that '*' might be a shadow password; It could be.

Also, could be a convention for locking the login.  If the superuser
had typed in the '*', then noone can log in as bin.  I know of several
systems that used the '*' symbol to lock logins.  "used" is past tense
because they ran into problems using it as it is a UNIX metacharacter.

Ken Gibson
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