The "missing" password!

[Niles Rogoff]

A safer way to do this would be `file /etc/passwd', which as a side effect
does not require root


On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 7:42 PM, Colin Watson <cjwatson at ubuntu.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 05:36:27PM -0400, Mischa Falkenburg wrote:
> > On 03/31/2014 08:01 AM, Colin Watson wrote:
> > >On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 05:28:42AM -0400, Mischa Falkenburg wrote:
> > >>Quick response to Niles...there are no /etc/shadow, or etc/passwd
> > >>folders on this system.
> > >They are files, not folders (more usually called "directories" on Unix),
> > >and they're required to exist on all Ubuntu systems.  It's vanishingly
> > >unlikely that they've been removed, and I suspect you wouldn't even have
> > >got as far as you have done if they had.
> > >
> > >However, reading them will not help you anyway, as passwords are hashed,
> > >not stored in cleartext.
> >
> > I didn't say that they were removed.
>
> They existed at one point.  If they no longer exist, then by definition
> they've been removed.
>
> > When I looked at /etc, I didn't see either /shadow or /passwd.
> >
> > How would YOU find them - hashed or not?
>
> I'd probably type "cat /etc/passwd" etc. in a terminal window.  Note
> that /etc/shadow will only be readable by the root user.
>
> --
> Colin Watson                                       [cjwatson at ubuntu.com]
>
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