anyone know about crypt(3)? Need info

[Brad Parker]

I have a couple of questions about crypt(3).

1. Is there any public domain code to implement it? (has it been
"cloned"), or is the unix library code the only very in the world?

2. Is crypt(3) the same on all unix machines? i.e. can one encoded
password be tested on ANY unix machine? (SUN's YP (yellow pages) seems
to reply on this fact, so it would seem to be true)

3. What is the status of crypt? Is this code, since it's part of the
unix release, strongly protected by A. T. & T. ? Is the algorithm
obvious and in the public domain? (I have always believed that it is a
trade secret/proprietary, but I'm curious what others may know/believe)

I would like to encrypt unix passwords on a non-unix machine in order to
validate users (imagine authenticating Unix based passwords on a
non-unix machine). Does any one else do this or need this service? 

Currently "pcnfsd" (shipped with PC/NFS from Sun) does this via an RPC.
Even though this works (we use it), I'm interested in any other viable
solutions.

Thanks for any/all responses. 

-brad

ps: I posted this once before; I'm afraid it did not get out. Sorry if
it did.
-- 

Brad Parker
Cayman Systems		"You are sleeping; you don't want to believe..."
brad at Cayman.com			   - from a (yet another) Smith's tune