passwd access method?

[Neil Rickert]

In article <14920004 at hpdmd48.boi.hp.com> markw at hpdmd48.boi.hp.com (Mark Wolfe) writes:
>
>    As a part of beefing up security on the machines I administer, I'm working
>on implementing password aging. In order to simplify the process, I wrote a 
>
>    My question is this:
>    Is there a proper way to access the passwd file to insure file inegrity and
>security? I use the lockf call to reduce the chance of simultaneous access doing

 Before you worry about locking the passwd file, why don't you work on the more
important problems:

   1.	Making sure the user doesn't just choose the same password again.
   2.	Ensuring that the user doesn't change to a different password, then
	immediately change back to the original.
   3.	Making sure that the user doesn't write down his/her new password,
	just in case it is forgotten.
   4.	Making sure that the user doesn't select an easy to guess password,
	because with all the forced password changes he/she has run out of
	good ideas for hard to guess passwords.
   5.   Making sure that the user doesn't login from a PC terminal emulator,
	with an automatic login script, and with his password there on the
	PC where anyone with access to the PC can get it.

 I guess it is hopeless.  People will continue to come up with technical
solutions to the problem which fail to take into account the real source of
security weaknesses - human psychology.

-- 
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  Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science               <rickert at cs.niu.edu>
  Northern Illinois Univ.
  DeKalb, IL 60115.                                  +1-815-753-6940