Null entries in passwd

[jim at kovacs.UUCP]

>

This is an old article (Mar 84) which I posted and which
never made it to the net.

> We are running 4.2bsd on a VAX 750.
> Recently we've found "null" entries in our passwd file.
> They looked like this:
>        :
>        :0::
>        :0:0::
>        :
>        :0:
> Someone here added an entry to the passwd file
> and accidently left out the "real life" name field.
> The "null" entries followed the bad passwd entry.
> Running "/usr/ucb/chfn" caused the null entries to
> appear. With "chfn" disabled, we still got them, so
> there must be another program which handles missing
> fields with the same lack of grace. The problem
> went away, of course, when we added the missing field.
> Hope this helps someone else with the same symptom.

-Jim Keating-
R. Abel & Assoc.
Hollywood, CA 90038
(213) 462 8100