questions about /etc/passwd

[Doug Gwyn]

In article <2666 at munnari.oz.au> shek at mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU (Wilson SHEK) writes:
>	daemon:*:1:1:the UniX Daemon:/:
>Who/what are they? Does the '*' in the password field have any meaning?

Such accounts serve as "owners" of various system files.
Some of them, notably daemon, may have executables set-UID to them.

The * does not match any ecnrypted password, thereby guaranteeing
that nobody can log in as one of these pseudo-users.