Null passwords

[Sean Estabrooks]

On Sat, 12 Jun 2004 11:10:31 +0800
Chris Kloiber <ckloiber at ckloiber.com> wrote:

> On Fri, 2004-06-11 at 13:07 -0700, David Maier wrote:
> > I'm running an FC2 system on which I don't care about password 
> > security.  PAM is running. I've been all over the HOWTO's and manual and 
> > cannot find how to enable null passwords for a user. I've tried putting 
> > a nullok argument into stacks in the login, passwd, and system-auth PAM 
> > services, to no avail, and have run out of ideas. Obviously I'm a newbie 
> > trying to get a handle on where to even look.
> > 
> > Thanks for your help.
> > 
> > Dave Maier
> 
> One way (and probably not the 'right' way) is to hand edit the shadow
> file and remove everything from within the first and second ":"
> characters (the password). I found that with nothing there it will just
> let you in. 
> 
> This:
> 
> ckloiber:$1$bxh7kMGh$8txM010iQj8VM0/LZXihM1:12576:0:99999:7:::
> 
> becomes:
> 
> ckloiber::12576:0:99999:7:::
> 
> But for $DIETY sake, please don't put that machine on the internet. Even
> via dialup. You're asking for trouble.
> 

Easier way to accomplish the same thing is to use the passwd command
to remove the password for a user, as root:

# passwd -d <username>

Cheers,
Sean