Question About /etc/shadow

[Jay Ridgley]

Good Evening,

I noticed that he entry for root is slightly different on two of my 
systems. I am wondering which is the more secure.

In the second field each has a single character:

one has !
the other *

man shadow:
If the password field contains some string that is not a valid
result of crypt(3), for instance ! or *, the user will not be able
to use a unix password to log in (but the user may log in the
system by other means).

What are those other means and when should ! or * the be used?

In reading I find that ! normally precedes the prior hash. What if the 
prior hash was null (no login required)?

Regards,
Jay


-- 
Jay Ridgley
jridgley2 at austin.rr.com
Registered Linux User ID - 9115
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Registered Ubuntu User ID - 23320