Re: [expert] how do I allow users to ftp in

[Singer XJ Wang]

On Thu, 18 Nov 1999, Denis Havlik wrote:

> :~>> It should be fixed of course but why would anyone want to not use MD5
> :~>> and shadow passwords?
> :~>
> :~>   If you have a passwd file maintenance system with dozens (or
> :~>hundreds) of users, you may not want to force everybody to re-create their
> :~>passwords when you can just copy the old passwd file.
> 
> What is a problem with copying the passwd+shadow? By the way, could
> someone explain me what are the MD5 passwords?  
> 

MD5 is a different cypto system. The origional password system invented by
the humble Thompson/Ritchie encodes 00000000000000 25 times with DES. It
uses you password as the DES key and then adds one of 4096 Random Salts.
However, DES is rather err, outdated. It was secure in the 60's and 70's
but now easily cracked. MD5 is a different crypo and it has a key length
of 128bits. [DES has 64bit keys]