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Date:      Tue, 21 Nov 2000 11:49:33 -0500
From:      "Sean O'Connell" <sean@stat.Duke.EDU>
To:        Kris Kennaway <kris@FreeBSD.ORG>
Cc:        FreeBSD stable <freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Re: Hmm..passwords.
Message-ID:  <20001121114933.D27266@stat.Duke.EDU>
In-Reply-To: <20001121082750.A2922@citusc17.usc.edu>; from kris@FreeBSD.ORG on Tue, Nov 21, 2000 at 08:27:50AM -0800
References:  <20001121135541.A14220@nevermind.kiev.ua> <Pine.BSF.4.21.0011210704230.88234-100000@epsilon.lucida.ca> <20001121082750.A2922@citusc17.usc.edu>

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Kris Kennaway stated:
: On Tue, Nov 21, 2000 at 07:09:57AM -0500, Matt Heckaman wrote:
: > On Tue, 21 Nov 2000, Nevermind wrote:
: > ...
: > : The same thing...
: > : Mabe the point is in DES/md5 passwords?
: > 
: > FreeBSD has actually defaulted to MD5 passwords for quite a long time to
: > those of us not within the US. However, installing the US crypto has
: > always forced the usage of DES passwords by default. In order to switch
: > your machine back to DES passwords from MD5 passwords, this is what you
: > need to do:
: 
: No longer correct. You don't need to futz with libraries and symlinks
: any more, only change the value of the passwd_format login capability
: in /etc/login.conf. The default is MD5 passwords for new accounts.
: 
Kris-

This issue probably could stand a little more reinforcing (see below)

grep passwd_format /usr/src/UPDATING 
Exit 1

However, this is very nicely spelled out in the 
/usr/src/release/texts/ERRATA.TXT (I found this while composing the
email).

<snip from ERRATA.TXT>
---- System Update Information:

The system now defaults to using an MD5-based password scheme in all
cases rather than the less secure (but more interoperable) DES-based
password scheme.  This was not documented well; to switch to DES
passwords, login.conf(5) must specify "passwd_format", eg:
default:\
        :passwd_format=des:\
See the login.conf(5), yp(4), and login_cap(3) manpages for
documentation.
</snip from ERRATA.TXT>

Maybe we could add a

	:password_format=md5:\

to the default entry or create a commented out des login
class like

#des_users:\
#	:password_format=des:\
#	:tc=default:

to clarify this a bit.  I was surprised for a few minutes
but ended up just adding the following to default

	:password_format=des:\

Also, as a side question, does passwd automagically stick to using 
DES for NIS-enabled machines so it doesn't corrupt NIS maps on other
machines/os's?  I suppose in a FreeBSD-only environment, this would
not be a problem, but I have a bunch of Digital Unix machines that
I have to support, as well.

Point of clarification: based on the ERRATA, should I add the 
passwd_format=des to all my machines to preserve interoperablity?

Thanks
S
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sean O'Connell                                Email: sean@stat.Duke.EDU
Institute of Statistics and Decision Sciences Phone: (919) 684-5419
Duke University                               Fax:   (919) 684-8594


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