I use the system password file/system for four reasons:
1) It allows the customers to easily update their passwords.
2) It allows me the flexibility of doing things like assigning users to
groups based on services they pay for.
3) It prevents losing all of my clear-text passwords (and the attendant
problems with "I'm just checking a password for my friend.") through a
clerical error again.
4) It keeps my password file down to an extremely short 200 to 300
lines, instead of the 16,000 lines it used to be.
5) It makes replication of the files for the backup RADIUS
authenticator more secure (no clleart
In the *BSD family of systems, shadow password databases (which make the
process VERY scalable) are not just 'available' but are the primary
(only?) way to do password authentication with the system.
-- Dave Burgess Network Engineer - Nebraska On-Ramp, Inc. *bsd FAQ Maintainer / SysAdmin for the NetBSD system in my spare bedroom "Just because something is stupid doesn't mean there isn't someone that doesn't want to do it...." - To unsubscribe, email 'majordomo@livingston.com' with 'unsubscribe portmaster-users' in the body of the message. Searchable list archive: <URL:http://www.livingston.com/Tech/archive/>