Re: Surprise null root password

Reply: David Chisnall : "Re: Surprise null root password"
In reply to: bob prohaska : "Re: Surprise null root password"
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From: Mike Karels <mike_at_karels.net>
Date: Sat, 27 May 2023 02:52:37 UTC

On 26 May 2023, at 21:28, bob prohaska wrote:

> It turns out all seven hosts in my cluster report
> a null password for root in /usr/src/etc/master.passwd:
> root::0:0::0:0:Charlie &:/root:/bin/sh
>
> Is that intentional?

Well, it has been that way in FreeBSD since 1993, and in BSD since
1980 (4.0BSD).  I guess you would say that it is intentional.  The
alternative would be to have a well-known password like root, but
then it wouldn’t be as obvious that a local password had not been
set.

		Mike

> Thanks for reading,
>
> bob prohaska