Redhat: Shadow

The Redhat Shadow Password Suite

Before security became an issue all users and passwords were stored in /etc/passwd and /etc/group files. But having the passwords stored in a reachable file is obviously not an option any more. The shadow password suite is designed to solve this problem. Sensitive data such as passwords have been moved to a file only accessible to the root user.

The Shadow password suite consists of four files. /etc/passwd and /etc/group are the files used origanally. Two files have been added to the suite: /etc/shadow and /etc/gshadow. The default values of the files are defined in /etc/login.defs