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From: somsky@brl.mil (William R. Somsky)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.aix
Subject: Password Verification
Message-ID: <16390@smoke.brl.mil>
Date: 11 Jun 91 16:47:08 GMT
Article-I.D.: smoke.16390
Sender: news@smoke.brl.mil
Organization: Ballistic Research Laboratory, APG, MD
Lines: 16

I'd like to put 'xlock' onto our systems, but I'm having difficulty 
with the unlock user verification part.  What xlock normally does is ask
for the user's password and compares this (via the appropriate encryption
routines) with the entry found in /etc/passwd.  With the passwords stored
in /etc/security/passwd, however, this fails.  Has anyone worked this out?
Should I make xlock be suid root?  What would be needed to read the
/etc/security/passwd file?  For getting the info out of /etc/passwd,
there is some library routin (I forget the name just now) which reads
the /etc/passwd file and extracts the relevant information.  Is there
an appropriate function for the /etc/security/passwd file?  Does anyone
have any suggestions?  (And yes, I've already dealt with Ctl-Alt-Backspace.)

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 I speak for no-one other than myself --- sometimes, not even that...
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William R. Somsky					somsky@brl.mil