password file

juno · 10-02-2002, 01:20 AM

What file store the user password in linux? Thx.

wonderpun · 10-02-2002, 01:24 AM

Well I think it's stored in /etc/shadow. But as you already know they're encrypted so I don't think you'll get much info from them.

Good luck!

markus1982 · 10-02-2002, 01:05 PM

Well on RH 8.0 there is NO more /etc/shadow ... the passwords are stored also in /etc/passwd ... that sucks IMHO

Syncrm · 10-02-2002, 09:11 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by markus1982
Well on RH 8.0 there is NO more /etc/shadow ... the passwords are stored also in /etc/passwd ... that sucks IMHO :tisk:

prolly cause you didn't enable shadow passwds. if RH stores all encrypted passwds in /etc/passwd then it's a HUGE step back in security, and just really lame on redhat's part.

markus1982 · 10-03-2002, 06:54 AM

No, I have enabled it ... I've chekced that already ...

Syncrm · 10-03-2002, 10:47 AM

wow... huge security hole. RH should know better than that. what are the perms on /etc/passwd?

markus1982 · 10-03-2002, 11:44 AM

Code:

[root@localhost root]# ls -l /etc/passwd
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root         1389 Oct  2 23:27 /etc/passwd

Syncrm · 10-03-2002, 11:47 AM

wow... how irresponsible of redhat. that's world readable....

nxny · 10-03-2002, 12:14 PM

/etc/passwd has always been world-readable. Whether you store your encrypted password in it or not.

markus1982 · 10-03-2002, 05:51 PM

Description of the package authconfig (from http://www.redhat.com/software/linux.../packages.html):

Text-mode tool for setting up NIS and shadow passwords.

So but what happens if you create a kickstart file and choose (in the packages-section):
-authconfig

Then you get a system WITHOUT shadow-pwd ... although in the kickstart-file you can specify authconfig --useshadow or auth --useshadow before ... but it's just useless those settings if not installing authconfig ... as far as I can remember I don't think I had a similar prob with 7.3

markus1982 · 10-03-2002, 05:52 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by nxny
/etc/passwd has always been world-readable. Whether you store your encrypted password in it or not.

The RH system needs a lot of security tighting actions after the base install to secure the system. I wrote a kickstart system_configure script for that purpose in perl which is about 1000 lines currently!

nxny · 10-03-2002, 06:23 PM

Definitely! The password should be stored in /etc/shadow for security. But /etc/passwd has been world readable due to historic reasons -- back from the UNIX days -- when people didnt need to be as security conscious as we are today.
Would you share your script with us then, Markus?

markus1982 · 10-03-2002, 11:56 PM

At a later time after adding a few comments to it

Druaga · 10-04-2002, 09:27 AM

red hat 8.0 does have shadowed passwords. It is enabled by default in the install. You would have to purposely uncheck it to take off shadowed passwords. There will always be a /etc/passwd file if you have shadowed passwords or not. if there is a /etc/shadow then you have shadowed passwords.