1 $Id: README.linux,v 1.21 2000/10/16 21:34:39 kloczek Exp $
3 This is the shadow suite hacked a bit for Linux. See CHANGES for
4 short description of changes. See also WISHLIST if you have too
5 much time on your hands :-). Now that copyright issues have been
6 resolved, the most important thing is testing. Please test this
7 code as much as you can, and report any problems. At this point,
8 I made so many changes that any bugs are probably mine.
10 This package uses GNU autoconf, so it should be quite portable
11 - but it hasn't been tested much on anything but Linux/x86.
12 Long time ago, it has been reported to work on SunOS 4.1.x,
13 and recently there has been some success on Solaris 2.x and Irix.
14 I'd like to compile a current list of platforms this package is
15 known to work on - if you get it to work on some new OS (non-x86
16 Linux, or non-Linux), please let me know. Please specify: host
17 type guessed by autoconf, libc version, distribution, changes
18 you needed to make (if any), etc. Please see README.platforms
19 for the current (incomplete - I know there are more...) list of
20 platforms this package is known to work on.
22 There is a developers mailing list. It has moved again, and is
23 now hosted by SuSE - thanks to Thorsten Kukuk <kukuk@suse.de>.
24 Send the command "subscribe shadow" to majordomo@suse.com to
25 subscribe if you are interested. To send mail to everyone on
26 the list, send it to shadow@suse.com.
28 Before reporting bugs, please check if they still exist in my latest
29 development snapshot. Every few weeks I make a new version available
30 at the following URLs:
31 ftp://piast.t19.ds.pwr.wroc.pl/pub/linux/shadow/
32 ftp://ftp.ists.pwr.wroc.pl/pub/linux/shadow/
33 http://www.itnet.pl/amelektr/linux/shadow/
34 (there are also mirror sites, see README.mirrors).
36 After installation, please remember to remove any old binaries like
37 /bin/passwd (this version installs /usr/bin/passwd). If your passwd
38 program doesn't like the new /etc/login.defs settings, and complains
39 about "configuration error", this is most likely the problem.
41 Current versions of the Linux C library (both libc 5.x and glibc 2.x)
42 have the shadow support, including MD5-based crypt(), built in.
43 Because of this, libshadow.a will build without these functions,
44 and the ones from libc will be used instead. Currently, libshadow.a
45 is for internal use only, so if you see -lshadow in a Makefile of
46 some other package, it is safe to remove it.
48 Remember that shadow passwords will not make your system more secure
49 if your distribution has gaping holes which let any user become root.
50 Some distributions, especially the older ones, are much like SunOS 4.1
51 without any security patches installed :-). Read the linux-security
52 mailing list archives, and plug all holes before attempting to install
55 Very old versions of this package (shadow-3.3.x, shadow-mk) had a few
56 nasty security holes, too. Please use the latest version if possible.
58 Encrypted passwords are not readable, but it is highly recommended
59 to use cracklib with a big dictionary to prevent users from choosing
60 weak passwords. This way if someone ever gets access to /etc/shadow
61 (for example, because of some not yet discovered bug), they will not
62 get half of the passwords using Crack... There is a configure option
63 to use cracklib, I haven't tested it myself but I'm told it works.
65 The code feels like stabilizing now - while still BETA, it should
66 work quite well. Many bugs have been fixed, but there may be still
67 a few lurking. Again, please test it and report any problems.
69 Thanks to Julianne Frances Haugh <jockgrrl@ix.netcom.com> who wrote the thing
70 in the first place, sent me the latest version, and released it under
71 a "free" BSD-style license, so that it can be included in Linux
72 distributions (at least Debian 1.3 and Slackware 3.2 are already
73 doing that; Debian and Red Hat packaging standards are supported in
74 the standard source tree). David Frey <David.Frey@lugs.ch>, Michael
75 Meskes <meskes@topsystem.de> and Guy Maor <maor@debian.org> have
76 done a lot of work to integrate shadow passwords into Debian Linux.
78 Ben Collins <bcollins@debian.org> maintains this package for Debian
79 and added complete PAM support, now available in Debian 2.2.
81 Thanks to Bradley Glonka <bradley@123.net> of Linux System Labs
82 (http://www.lsl.com/) for sending me a free Red Hat 4.2 CD-ROM,
83 making it possible to test this package on this distribution.
85 Special thanks to Michael H. Jackson <mhjack@tscnet.com> who wrote
86 the Linux Shadow Password HOWTO. Special thanks to Greg Gallagher
87 <ggallag@orion.it.luc.edu> and Jon Lewis for maintaining the
88 developers mailing list for a long time.
90 Thanks to Maciej 'Tycoon' Majchrowski <tycoon@piast.t19.ds.pwr.wroc.pl>
91 for ftp server space on piast.t19.ds.pwr.wroc.pl, and to Pawel Wiecek
92 <coven@pwr.wroc.pl> for keeping bach.ists.pwr.wroc.pl up and running.
94 Ian Jackson <iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk> criticized the current shadow password
95 system (see the linux-security mailing list archives). We disagree on
96 some points, but this started a discussion on possible better solutions.
97 Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu> has started a new project to implement
98 Pluggable Authentication Modules - a relatively new standard API which
99 makes it easier to add new authentication mechanisms (it's more than
100 just shadow passwords). See http://parc.power.net/morgan/Linux-PAM/ for
101 more information. (XXX - this URL has changed, I have to check where
104 Thanks to at least the following people for sending me patches, bug
105 reports and various comments. This list may be incomplete, I received
108 John Adelsberger <jja@umr.edu>
109 Martin Bene <mb@sime.com>
110 Luca Berra <bluca@www.polimi.it>
111 Darcy Boese <possum@chardonnay.niagara.com>
112 Judd Bourgeois <shagboy@bluesky.net>
113 Ulisses Alonso Camaro <ulisses@pusa.eleinf.uv.es>
114 Ed Carp <ecarp@netcom.com>
115 Rani Chouha <ranibey@smartec.com>
116 Ben Collins <bcollins@debian.org>
117 Joshua Cowan <jcowan@hermit.reslife.okstate.edu>
118 Alan Curry <pacman@tardis.mars.net>
119 Frank Denis <j@4u.net>
120 Hrvoje Dogan <hdogan@bjesomar.srce.hr>
121 Chris Evans <lady0110@sable.ox.ac.uk>
122 Marc Ewing <marc@redhat.com>
123 Janos Farkas <chexum@bankinf.banki.hu>
124 Werner Fink <werner@suse.de>
125 Floody <flood@evcom.net>
126 David Frey <David.Frey@lugs.ch>
127 Brian R. Gaeke <brg@dgate.org>
128 Cristian Gafton <gafton@sorosis.ro>
129 Anton Gluck <gluc@midway.uchicago.edu>
130 Dave Hagewood <admin@arrowweb.com>
131 Jonathan Hankins <jhankins@mailserv.homewood.k12.al.us>
132 Juergen Heinzl <unicorn@noris.net>
133 Joey Hess <joey@kite.ml.org>
134 Tim Hockin <thockin@eagle.ais.net>
135 David A. Holland <dholland@hcs.harvard.edu>
136 Andreas Jaeger <aj@arthur.rhein-neckar.de>
137 Timo Karjalainen <timok@iki.fi>
138 Calle Karlsson <ckn@kash.se>
139 Sami Kerola <kerolasa@rocketmail.com>
140 Thorsten Kukuk <kukuk@suse.de>
141 Jon Lewis <jlewis@lewis.org>
142 Pavel Machek <pavel@bug.ucw.cz>
143 Guy Maor <maor@debian.org>
144 Martin Mares <mj@gts.cz>
145 Rafal Maszkowski <rzm@torun.pdi.net>
146 Nikos Mavroyanopoulos <nmav@i-net.paiko.gr>
147 Michael Meskes <meskes@topsystem.de>
148 Arkadiusz Miskiewicz <misiek@pld.org.pl>
149 Greg Mortensen <loki@world.std.com>
150 Mike Pakovic <mpakovic@users.southeast.net>
151 Steve M. Robbins <steve@nyongwa.montreal.qc.ca>
152 Adam Rudnicki <adam@v-lo.krakow.pl>
153 Algis Rudys <arudys@rice.edu>
154 Lutz Schwalowsky <schwalow@mineralogie.uni-hamburg.de>
155 Jay Soffian <jay@lw.net>
156 Aniello Del Sorbo <anidel@edu-gw.dia.unisa.it>
157 Juha Virtanen <jiivee@iki.fi>
158 Michael Talbot-Wilson <mike@calypso.bns.com.au>
159 Jesse Thilo <Jesse.Thilo@pobox.com>
160 Shane Watts <shane@nexus.mlckew.edu.au>
161 Alexander O. Yuriev <alex@bach.cis.temple.edu>
162 Leonard N. Zubkoff <lnz@dandelion.com>
164 If you want to be added here, or your e-mail address changes,
165 please let me know. Thanks.
166 -- Marek Michalkiewicz <marekm@linux.org.pl>
projects / shadow / blob