Editing /etc/passwd to disable password not working

[Santanu Chatterjee]

On Thu, Mar 1, 2012 at 7:05 PM, Joaquin Nadal Dura
<ximo.nadal at ific.uv.es> wrote:
> On 03/01/2012 01:19 PM, Santanu Chatterjee wrote:
>> On Thu, Mar 1, 2012 at 3:36 PM, Joaquin Nadal Dura
>> <ximo.nadal at ific.uv.es> wrote:
>>>
>>> Try:
>>> $ sudo passwd --delete username
>>
>> Nope. Still not working. I am getting the account disables (i.e.
>> locked), but not "password-less". But as you said, the manual for
>> passwd does indicate that this should render the account passwordless!
>>
>> Any ideas?
>>
>
> Hi again,
>
> See usermod options --lock & --unlock. But I'm not sure if it works.
>

"usermod --lock" and "usermod --unlock" are quite (exactly ?) similar
in effect to "passwd --lock [LOGIN]" and "passwd --unlock [LOGIN]".
All they do is prefix a '!' to the encrypted password field in
/etc/shadow. But that will only deactivate/activate the account, not
make it passwordless.

-Santanu