Thanks to all who has responded. I received 20 responses.
The answer to my question is NO. There is no way for 'root' to see users
passwords unless he uses other ways or tools like :-
1- Sniffers to trojanise the login program, to capture passwords when users
are sending them in text when they log in to the server.
2- Using cracking tools like John the Ripper - password unencrypter or crack
or similar brute force program.
Some other suggested solution (I'll try this afternoon) :
1- copy your existing hashed password database as-is. This might be
feasible, since Solaris supports PAM (pluggable
authentication modules). You should be able to write (or find) one that will
authenticate against a database in Tru64 C2 format. (With base security,
this would be trivial since the password hashing algorithm is the same. With
enhanced security I'm less sure, but since the algorithm had better be
public...)
2- Use "convauth" to convert password databases from C2 to BASE. That will
hopefully write them in /etc/passwd in a normal UNIX crypt
form.
3- If the encryption algorithm is the same, it is possible to create the
user with a password in the Solaris 2.6 shadow file,
then cut and paste in the encrypted password from the other system in place
4- What you have to do is to get crypted password on your alpha server with
:
/usr/tcb/bin/edauth -g user (field u_pwd)
and copy it in /etc/shadow file on your Solaris server
5- Using NIS , but setting this up would be a nightmare if this is the
first time I'm going to do it. :)
----------
Original post :
> Managers,
> Is there a way for 'root' to see users passwords unencrypted ? The
reason
> for this, is that I need to move some user accounts from an Alpha server
> Tru64 4.0e C2 acting as a web hosting server to another server running
> Solaris 2.6, and to have the users use the same passwords they used on
the
> Tru64 machine.
> Any hints please .
> Hisham Al Saad
> Bahrain Telecommunications company
> Tel : +973-883973
> Fax: + 973-9103973
> ahisham_at_batelco.com.bh
Received on Fri Jan 05 2001 - 06:45:35 NZDT