[X4U] Software to reveal passwords

[Doug McNutt]

At 19:13 -0700 8/18/07, Randy B. Singer wrote:
>On Aug 18, 2007, at 6:47 PM, Darlene Hess wrote:
>
>>Sorry I wasn't very clear. Mostly I am looking for software that  will reveal passwords people use to login to the Xserve. When I  sign in as the administrator, I see their username and ***** or  ********* for their password. They will call and say that their  password won't work and I seem to be changing the password a lot,  when really I would like to tell them what that password is.
>>I also have the same issue with FirstClass, our email client.
>
>I wish that I could help with this, but I have no experience with the  Xserve.  I would hope that it comes with a manual that might answer  this basic question.  If not, maybe this will help:

UNIX - and that is OS newXt, server or not, does not store passwords. What it keeps is the result of a one way hash of the password as it was when originally entered.

When a user logs in his password as typed is sent through the same hashing algorithm and the result is compared with the stored hash.

So. . . The server does NOT KNOW the password. All you can do is reset it to a new one.

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