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

[Rey Paulo]

In article <1991May25.153939.13870 at mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert at mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>
> It doesn't mean anything in particular.  It represents the encrypted password.
>It happens that no encrypted password can ever be '*', so this is just one
>way of preventing anybody from ever logging in on this account.
>
> If for some reason I want to suspend a user from logging in, I might just
>prefer to put 'SUSPEND' in this field, as another way of preventing logins.
>
Yes, that's right.  It is also more secure if you can include characters in
this field which don't belong to the encrypted alphabet.  One of these
characters is '*'.
-- 
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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