On December 21, 2004 04:47 am, V.V.Prasad wrote: > IAK Tanoli, > > Thanks. One part of the problem got solved. Now I am able to login as root > as well as all users. I ran pwunconv. That moved the encrypted passwords to > the passwd file and deleted the shadow file. > However, if I run pwconv again, I am back to square one. > I ran pwconv and that is how the system is at now. > But the question is do I need shadow? What am I getting with it? > > prasad Hi, you definately want shadow passwords. Without using shadow, the password is encrypted (hashed?) and stored in passwd, but /etc/passwd needs to be world readable. Anyone with access to the system can grab the hashed passwords and feed them into a password cracking program. Using the shadow password scheme, the encrypted passwords are stored in /etc/shadow, which is readable only by root. That way there is still the required access to /etc/passwd without exposing your password to the world. have you run pwck? The problem sounds similar to the system being set to use ldap or kerberos as the authentication method, however the fix has already been suggested (run authconfig) so i presume that is not it. Have you changed any PAM related files (/etc/security /etc/pam.d)? --- Pete Nesbitt, rhce -- redhat-list mailing list unsubscribe mailto:redhat-list-request@xxxxxxxxxx?subject=unsubscribe https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list
