What does '*' symbol in /etc/passwd means?

[Rey Paulo]

In article <27176 at adm.brl.mil> aeba-im-o-e2 at berlin-emh1.army.mil ( IM EMAIL ASST SYS ADMIN) writes:
>>>Also, could be a convention for locking the login.  If the superuser
>>>had typed in the '*', then noone can log in as bin.  I know of several
>>>systems that used the '*' symbol to lock logins.  "used" is past tense
>>>because they ran into problems using it as it is a UNIX metacharacter.
>                                                   ^^^^^^^ a lie ^^^^^
>
>A few people have asked me to be specific about what problems were had.
>Well, I lied.  The problem was not due to the fact that '*' can be special.
>After checking with the person that told me not to use '*' in the password
>field, I find that the real reason was that the security scripts in Hayden's
>UNIX System Security by Kochan and Wood would choke on the '*'.
>

The reason why '*' is used to lock login is because '*' is not in the 
encrypted alphabet of the crypt algorithm.  Hence, it is impossible for
the encryption program to generate a string with a '*'.

-- 
Rey V. Paulo                  | Internet:  rvp at csc.canberra.edu.au 
University of Canberra        | I am not bound to please thee with my answer. 
AUSTRALIA                     |         -Shylock, in "The Merchant of Venice" 
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