In the immortal words of Marilyn Davis (marilyn@deliberate.com):
>
> Norbert Bollow taught us about the '*' in the encrypted password field
> of the password file producing a new user that only root can access.
> This is just what we need and solves all arguments. There is no
> reason to chose a priority.
>
> Is part of Linux security *not* to document such an excellent security
> feature? :^)
*choke*
Try "man passwd". Oh hell, here's the relevant excerpt:
Passwd is an ASCII file which contains a list of the sys-
tem's users and the passwords they must use for access.
The password file should have read access for everyone,
which is ok because of the encryption, but write access
only for the superuser. If you create a new login, leave
the password field empty and use passwd(1) to fill it. A
star or something like that in the password field means,
that this user can not login via login(1).
Now, admittedly, there's nothing in, say, the RedHat Users Guide
that jumps up and says "hey! here's how to make a null user!"
but then again it's sort of obvious from looking at the passwd
file itself...
-n
--
The life of a sysadmin is always intense!
Nathan J. Mehl --- The LeftBank Operation
nmehl@leftbank.com -- http://www.leftbank.com
A Global Internet Company. http://www.gi.net
References:
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