Take a bite...................

[Cathey872000]

Linux supports a special password protection technique by maintaining a shadow password file. A Shadow password file is a special version of password files that only root can read.
The password information is left out of the password file. You can determine weather the system users shadow password file by checking the password file. Type the following command on the command prompt.

# more /etc/passwd

It will display the content of the password file. Each line in the file represents information about a particular user. A colon ( separates each information in a line. The second field is for password. If the password exists in the file then shadow password technique is not used by the system.

The shadow password technique can be implemented by converting the password file. You can do this by using the pwconv command. Log in as root and enter pwconv command at the prompt. It will not display any message, but when the shell prompt returns, your system will have a /etc/shadow file and /etc/passwd file encrypted password data is replaced with an x. The password data is now moved to /etc/shadow.

[Paleo Pete]

That command does nothing, blinks back to a command prompt, no output at all...Looks like something is missing, what is it supposed to display MORE of? The MORE argument tells the system to display one page at a time, so you can scroll through it. For it to have anything to scroll through, it needs a command in front of it...

Quote your sources, we like good information around here, but we also like to see where it came from, we don't just take anything anyone decides to post as carved in stone...Feed the LINK MONSTERS

[malcore]

Most, but not all distros support the use of shadow passwords without first installing Shadow Password Suite, which will also require recompiling many programs.

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Shadow-Password-HOWTO.html

You will have to check if your distro came with it. Just run the pwconv command, then check for the etc/shadow file.

More info:
http://www.comptechdoc.org/os/linux/..._ugpasswd.html

http://www.tldp.org/LDP/lame/LAME/li...e-formats.html

A must do for security if your distro supports it.

Edit-The command <more /etc/passwd> works fine for me in su terminal.

[Paleo Pete]

Hmmm...odd....I tried user and su terminals, nothing on either one, just blinked back to a command prompt, no error message, no "bad command" or anything and no output...but it's still running so I guess that's a good thing...