From owner-freebsd-questions Sat Jan 26 18:39:30 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from tierzero.apana.org.au (sa.apana.org.au [203.14.158.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AE68937B402 for ; Sat, 26 Jan 2002 18:39:25 -0800 (PST) Received: from BAPhD.gihon.org.au (dialup-4.pasa.apana.org.au [203.14.158.133]) by tierzero.apana.org.au (8.11.1/8.11.1) with SMTP id g0R2chw21356 for ; Sun, 27 Jan 2002 13:08:44 +1030 (CST) (envelope-from bastill@sa.apana.org.au) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" From: Brian Astill Reply-To: bastill@sa.apana.org.au To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: A question from a convert from Windows to FreeBSD Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 13:09:13 +1030 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.2] References: <200201260704.g0Q74u864537@fedde.littleton.co.us> In-Reply-To: <200201260704.g0Q74u864537@fedde.littleton.co.us> MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <02012713091300.01261@BAPhD.gihon.org.au> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Saturday 26 January 2002 17:34, Chris Fedde wrote: > On Sat, 26 Jan 2002 14:00:24 +1030 Brian Astill wrote: > +------------------ > | However, what I am saying is that the simple sentence "passwords > | can be changed by root without knowledge of a users existing > | password" was simply not there on any man page - heaps and heaps > | of well-written detail I did not need, was. > > +------------------ > > But the manual page says this in the the first paragraph... > > Passwd changes the user's local, Kerberos, or NIS password. > If the user is not the super-user, passwd first prompts for > the current password and will not continue unless the correct > password is entered. > > The second sentence seems to be just another way of saying exactly > what you say was missing from the page. Maybe I've been reading > these things for too long, but it seems clear to me. Negative logic > can be confusing. Actually, I think it is inferential logic - but it requires a convoluted mind to see it! The operative words are "if the user is not the super-user" passwd first prompts ... from which one can reasonably infer that if the user IS the super-user passwd would NOT so prompt. You are right, but which newbie (like me) would see it? > And maybe this needs some cleaning up. You ain't kidding! :-) > You might want to submit a patch to the FreeBSD Documentation project. Want? - Yes. Be capable of? - No. -- Regards, Brian To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message