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From: hoey@NRL-AIC.arpa (Dan Hoey)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Do not use blank lines in /etc/passwd
Message-ID: <4701@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: Fri, 17-Oct-86 13:47:26 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-smok.4701
Posted: Fri Oct 17 13:47:26 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 21-Oct-86 22:21:35 EDT
Sender: news@brl-smoke.ARPA
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    Date: Mon, 25 Aug 86 11:15:24 edt
    From: sscalsk@nswc-wo.arpa

    Anybody ever had a blank line as the first line in your password
    file? It happened to me a few weeks ago and the system would not
    let any user at all log on. Su did not work either....

At least in vanilla 4.2, having blank lines anywhere in your password
file opens a security hole that I will forbear to discuss on this list.
I have not verified this on other systems, but I advise you to stick to
the standard format.  If you want to insert blank lines for readability
(which is how I discovered the bug) use nearly-blank lines like

x:*:0:0:                                                             ::

assuming that "x" is not a user on your system.

Dan Hoey
hoey@NRL-AIC.ARPA