Hi all,

I am root user..i added one user say nagesh..

useradd nagesh..
passwd nagesh
passwd is prasad..
but after that nagesh changed his passwd ..
can i view what is nagesh passwd?
Is there any chance with /etc/shadow or any file??

Is this possible...?? i can change passwd but can i know what is the passwd??

Answer is: you shouldn't be able to, and directly you can't (at least not that I'd know it's possible) but then again, as root you have access to shadow file and therefore you could just use brute force to start guessing the password value, and compare the guessed password's crypted value to the value in shadow and when they match, you'd know the password.

The system is built so that nobody should be able to see the passwords. However there must be a way to read the masked password, in order to check it against the password somebody gives when logging in; this inevitably leads to a situation where somebody (root user) can read the crypted password value. Directly it's no use, unless you know how to uncrypt the value in a correct way to get the original password; however this is pretty difficult (I'd say impossible but I doubt that). Still the root user who can read the crypted value can do the same trick that is done when the password is checked: compare crypted values (instead of trying to uncrypt the crypted password without knowledge how it was exactly crypted).

If you do find a way to "read" the clear password, do tell the rest of us too -- that would show the system has a hole in it, after which it could be fixed.

Root user has some responsibility, or should have, so that's why you don't give root account information/password to anyone else but yourself (if you happen to be the one who knows it). And then again, if you have a system with other users, they must be able to trust the administrator who has root privileges so that the administrator doesn't spend all his/her spare time trying to brute-force the users' passwords

no, not possible. that's the point of it. if you change a password the end user is aware of it of course. if you just know it, he doesn't know. obviously as root though you can become any user you wish within a standard system...

Strange,

I was almost certain that you could do that.

Not with the standard settings.

But I thought you can change the way that passwords get stored. (for example user management with a service; I can't recall the name at the moment)
So you can change it to plain text.

Can someone confirm this?

EDIT:
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/User-Authentic...HOWTO/x71.html
at the bottom of the page:

What's the point of being able to see the password??? As root, just change it and then tell the user what his/her new password is.

If it IS possible to modify the system to NOT encrypt the passwords, it does not seem like a very good idea.

ya..but this is little bit confusing...

can any body give example...

Indeed. For me it also looks strange to do this.
But I guess it is for stealing passwords.
I don't know why you would want this otherwise.

i have a reason...
my frd is working in some comp...she changes her password ..the next day her sytem admin comes and tell ur new passwd is this..
how is this possible?
how can he encrpt the passwd which is in /etc/shadow???

What's "frd"? And what's with all the shorts? Some people try hard to make as few spelling mistakes as possible and we still can't do a good job. Why do you try to cripple your text on purpose?

Does "her system admin" have a thing for her? Is he trying to show off? Is she liking it? How do you feel about it?

Aaanywho. There is more than one way to find out a user's password after he changed it, if you have complete control of the system.