/etc/passwd permissions problems

[Tony Facca]

> 
> I have had a number of spookey problems (sendmail errors, users login
> password) that were corrected by making /etc/passwd writable. 
> 
> Why does everyone need to write /etc/passwd ? I thought all they
> needed was to read it !
> 

/etc/passwd runs just fine with read-only permissions for us.  It should
definitley not be writable by everyone, or why bother having a password 
file?
--
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Tony Facca   |   fsfacca at avelon.lerc.nasa.gov      |     phone: 216-433-8318
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