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-   -   Unrecognized account (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/unrecognized-account-923458/)

wnowak1 01-12-2012 09:48 AM

Unrecognized account
 
My /etc/passwd file contains the following account:

"+:*:0:0:::"

and I'm not sure what it is. System (RHEL 4.8) is part of 'Yellow Pages'. Could this be related?

Thanks

T3RM1NVT0R 01-12-2012 12:47 PM

@ Reply
 
Hi wnowak1,

Welcome to LQ!!!

Do you have ldap configured on this system? If yes, then this is not an unrecognized account rather it is a sign to refer /etc/nsswitch for authentication param.

Dark_Helmet 01-12-2012 01:05 PM

To elaborate a little on what T3RM1NVT0R said...

The entry you see is not an account in and of itself. It's used to signal that the system needs to incorporate all login information found in a centrally managed admin system such as NIS, NIS+, and/or LDAP. It incorporates that info by going through/using the nsswitch.conf file. Because you mention 'Yellow Pages' I am left to wonder whether your system is configured for NIS (because--for historical reasons--NIS used 'yellow pages' and/or commands that began with 'yp' for handling NIS information).

Curiously, my personal system's man page for /etc/passwd (man 5 passwd) does not mention that particular entry format. Though, I did find this page: passwd(4)

wnowak1 01-12-2012 11:52 PM

Thanks to both of you for answering the questions. Yes the machine does use NIS, so that explains it. RKhunter was installed and flagged that 'account' as suspicious and I wasn't able to find any information about it.


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