Red Hat Linux 6.2: The Official Red Hat Linux Reference Guide | ||
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Shadow passwords are a method of improving system security by moving the encrypted passwords (normally found in /etc/passwd) to /etc/shadow which is readable only by root. During the installation of Red Hat Linux, you were given the option of setting up shadow password protection on your system.
The shadow-utils package contains a number of utilities that support:
Conversion from normal to shadowed passwords and back (pwconv, pwunconv)
Verification of the password, group, and associated shadow files (pwck, grpck)
Industry-standard methods of adding, deleting and modifying user accounts (useradd, usermod, and userdel)
Industry-standard methods of adding, deleting, and modifying user groups (groupadd, groupmod, and groupdel)
Industry-standard method of administering the /etc/group file (gpasswd)
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There are some additional points of interest concerning these utilities:
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