On Mon, 15 Dec 2003, Liberty Young wrote:

> i'm setting up an ftp server (against my wishes) and i'm need to make my
> own /etc/passwd clone as the ftp server can use an alternate passwd
> file. I'm having trouble creating it, though...how do i crypt the
> passwords in the password field?

A perl example:

 $name = $ARGV[0];
 @salt_chars         = ('a'..'z','A'..'Z','0'..'9');
 $salt               = $salt_chars[rand(62)] . $salt_chars[rand(62)];
 $passwd = crypt ($ARGV[1], $salt);
 print "$name:$passwd\n";

You can also use Apache's htpasswd. (And maybe proftpd's ftpasswd.)

And some systems have a makekey(8) and/or encrypt(1) commands that can be
used to create hashed passwords.

By the way, what FTP server are you using and how did you configure it to
use an alternative password file?

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