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From: seth@megad.UUCP (Seth H Zirin)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: star in password field
Message-ID: <151@megad.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 23-May-85 09:25:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: megad.151
Posted: Thu May 23 09:25:06 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 30-May-85 03:30:53 EDT
References: <4060001@csd2.UUCP>
Organization: The Bohemian Pleasure Dome
Lines: 13

> does anyone know what a * in the password field in /etc/passwd
> or /etc/group  means??

Seems to me that it means you can't login to that user. You also can't su to
that user unless you're doing it from root (i.e. no passwd needed).  We
generally do this for logins like lp, bin, sys, and adm, that only need
to be accessed from superuser (here at least).
-- 
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Name:	Seth H Zirin
UUCP:	{decvax, ihnp4}!philabs!sbcs!megad!seth

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