Re: MD5 passwords
On Sun, Apr 25, 1999 at 03:09:00PM -0400, Ben Pfaff wrote:
> Stephen Crowley <crow@debian.org> writes:
>
> > Do all system utilities support MD5 passwords? Do they introduce
> > incompatibilities with other OSes?
>
> I'm not positive but I think all the system utils do support it. But it is
> incompatible with older *nixes, I think it should tell the user about this
> and then let them decide to enable it or not. I think I heard somewhere that
> freebsd has this on by default now.
>
> My thought would be to offer it but default to `no' until/unless
> there's consensus in debian-devel or debian-policy that MD5 passwords
> are preferred.
>
> Are you running md5 passwords and if so have you encountered any
> problems? If I want to test md5 passwords on my machines, how do I
> set them up?
>
Yeah, i've been using it for several months with no problem whatsoever.
in /etc/login.defs add:
MD5_CRYPT_ENAB yes
> > Also, it's not possible to convert passwords between MD5 and standard
> > crypt(), so it's not just a matter of doing something analogous to
> > `shadowconfig on'/`shadowconfig off' like we have for shadow
> > passwords.
>
> Yes, that would be a concern.
>
> I assume that it's possible to validate both ways at once (i.e., have
> a passwd file with some md5 passwords and some `legacy' passwords),
> and have the passwd set new or changed passwords in the currently
> selected password format?
>
Yep, that's how it works.
--
Stephen Crowley
Debian GNU/Linux - http://www.debian.org
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