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Re: Moving passwd/shadow file



On Sat, 30 May 1998, John Plate wrote:

: Hi
: 
: I've noticed that the SAME password on two different Linux systems are
: encoded differently so that if user "xxxx" uses password "pppp" on two
: Linux systems, the encoding is different in each /etc/shadow file.
: 
: This implies that in case of a crash, user accounts cannot easily be
: moved to another machine. 
: 
: Any advise will be appreciated.
: -- 
: John Plate <plate@infotek.dk>

No, this is a feature.  You can indeed cut and paste the encrypted
password field from one box to another - I've done this several times.
However, the `passwd' command chooses a random salt when it hashes the
password entry so that they do NOT look the same.  Admittedly, this was
more of an issue before shadow passwords existed; it was an attempt to
make it non obvious that two encrypted passwords were indeed the same.

I hope that makes sense :)  Your concerns about moving accounts are
unfounded.

Cheers,

--
Nathan Norman
MidcoNet - 410 South Phillips Avenue - Sioux Falls, SD  57104
mailto://finn@midco.net   http://www.midco.net
finger finn@kepler.midco.net for PGP Key: (0xA33B86E9)



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