RH 6.0 shadow passwords and locking users bug

From: Prince Ctrl (princectrlat_private)
Date: Mon Aug 30 1999 - 14:07:35 PDT

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    Aleph,
    
    I do not know whether this has been reported to the list, so I thought
    I'd throw it out and see if anyone may know of a solution, and/or care
    to have a technical discussion concerning this bug.
    
    When administering a Red Hat 6.0 server and locking users with the
    'passwd -l <user>' command, and then unlocking a user with the 'passwd
    -u <user>' command, a control character is added to the end of a
    users' encrypted password in the form of a "^Q" in the shadowed passwd
    file.
    
    In our tests, we have found that this only occurs once the user has
    been "unlocked". It happens whether you are using MD5 encryption or
    DES...it doesn't matter.
    
    I have forwarded this to our Sr. Systems Administrator who said he was
    going to contact Red Hat today. Confirmation of that call is unknown.
    
    OS affected/tested: Red Hat 6.0
    Possible problem: It could either be the fact that the 'passwd' binary
    is actually adding ^Q to the end of a users encrypted password, or it
    may be something with the way pam is handling this. I know that pam
    has some .so files which deal with shadowed passwords, but I am no pam
    expert, so if anyone has some suggestions, corrections, etc., please
    inform me...
    
    Possible solution: Unknown
    
    If anyone has any ideas on how to fix this, please let me know...
    
    ===
    PrinceC
    Security Administrator
    princectrlat_private
    
    
    
    
    
    
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