Password Questions

Forum: User Feedback
Topic: Password Questions
started by: joeo

Posted by joeo on Mar. 16 2006,22:58

I have a frugal install.
1. How do I give user DSL a password?
2. I created a user"joe" and gave it a password. I save /home/joe in the filetool.list. When I do a reboot, the passowd for 'joe" is lost.
3. whare are the passwords for users stored?

Thanks for the help.

Posted by crusadingknight on Mar. 17 2006,02:57

Passwords, user data, etc. are saved in /etc/passwd. Which, of course, is in the frugal image, so they are lost on reboot.

Posted by mikshaw on Mar. 17 2006,03:31

I think there is some user data also stored in /etc/passwd (although not the password itself, oddly enough). It might not be vital info though...used by finger, according to the passwd man page.

Posted by joeo on Mar. 17 2006,13:39

I did not see any passwords in /etc/passwd. Could they be someplace else?
OR are you saying that I cannot have users with passwords in a frugal install?

Thanks for all the help!

Posted by mikshaw on Mar. 17 2006,15:27

Oh...sorry to make you wait. I dunno why i overlooked the fact that knight gave you an incorrect filename...i must be reading in typos lately...

The password is stored in /etc/shadow.

Posted by joeo on Mar. 17 2006,18:26

Thank you for your help!

Posted by _pathos on Mar. 20 2006,06:23

I replace /etc/passwd on startup with the .bash_profile file.

just use the passwd program to set the passwords, copy /etc/passwd into your home somewhere then add a line the replaces /etc/passwd with the saved version.

Posted by mikshaw on Mar. 20 2006,16:48

I had to read that a few times before realizing what you were saying.
"replace /etc/passwd on startup with the .bash_profile file" actually means "replace /etc/passwd on startup using commands in the .bash_profile file", yes?