From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Sep 16 22:21:40 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6A8B116A41F for ; Fri, 16 Sep 2005 22:21:40 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from phoffman@proper.com) Received: from above.proper.com (above.proper.com [208.184.76.39]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2925E43D46 for ; Fri, 16 Sep 2005 22:21:40 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from phoffman@proper.com) Received: from [10.20.30.249] (dsl2-63-249-92-231.cruzio.com [63.249.92.231]) (authenticated bits=0) by above.proper.com (8.12.11/8.12.9) with ESMTP id j8GMLcPc001316 for ; Fri, 16 Sep 2005 15:21:39 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from phoffman@proper.com) Mime-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2005 15:21:37 -0700 To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG From: Paul Hoffman Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Cc: Subject: What does an * in master.passwd (not passwd) mean? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2005 22:21:40 -0000 In 5.4 (and probably lots of other versions), the master.passwd file is pre-seeded with lots of accounts such as daemon, operator, and so on. The master.passwd file looks like: daemon:*:1:1::0:0:Owner of many system processes:/root:/usr/sbin/nologin operator:*:2:5::0:0:System &:/:/usr/sbin/nologin . . . The man page for master.passwd and passwd say what an "*" in the second field means in passwd, but not in master.passwd. Any clues would be appreciated (and I will put in a documentation pr when I have an answer). --Paul Hoffman