This puzzled me too - you can't change a password with vipw, because
        you see the encrypted version - but you can delete the password
        completely with vipw (creating an account with no password),
        and then change the password once multiuser with passwd.

        Cheers, David

Two years ago, I wrote a front-end for crypt which would allow you to
enter a password and 'salt' as plaintext and would then tell you what the
encrypted password was.  I used this to change passwords without the above
procedure.  I still have the source, (I think) although minor mods might
be needed for a non-kerberos system; I'm not sure.

ciao
-drr 

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