On Sun, 14 Apr 2002, Andrew Doran wrote:

> > Incidentally, why isn't this in login.conf instead?
>
> At the time, OpenBSD did it that way, and there was no great reason to do it
> differently. Also, if the settings were moved to login.conf, then it's not
> at all clear to me how the YP password setting should be handled. I'm almost
> certian that neither login.conf nor the extended information in
> master.password (such as: "login class") is YP friendly.

BSD/OS defines its alternative "widepasswords" in login.conf. I have used
it with passwd (and login) so the hashed passwd isn't limited to first 8
characters.

But I see that older (3.x?) BSD/OS man page for passwd says:
   Which type of cipher is used to encrypt the password information depends
   on the configuration in passwd.conf(5).  It can be different for local
   and YP passwords.

Maybe that doesn't apply to more recent BSD/OS. (I don't have it installed
right now.) But I never used passwd.conf on my BSD/OS boxes even though I
have used the alternative (widepasswords) crypt format.

   Jeremy C. Reed
   http://www.reedmedia.net/