Encrypted Password Portability Between releases

[Mark Tinguely]

  James Moser <james at ytjameslee.com> writes:

>   ... If I encrypt on a 4.7 box will it work on a 4.8
> system, just not the other way around?

what is the entry in the "crypt_default" two OSes /etc/auth.conf files?

I suspect the FreeBSD 4.8 is defaulting to MD5 encyption and the
FreeBSD 4.7 is knowledgable about DES encyption. MD5 passwords are
obvious because they start with "$1$" and they are longer than
DES encrypted passwords.

Sounds like you are re-implementing YP/NIS (see: man 8 yp).

--Mark Tinguely