[Buildroot] [PATCH 1/1] scripts/mkusers: allow users with no password value set

[James Knight]

Yann,

> On 2015-05-22 11:36 -0400, James Knight spake thusly:
> > The following allows a user definition to specify that a created 
user
> > entry should not have a password value set. Original implementation
> > allowed a user definition to provide a password value of "-" (no 
quotes)
> > to generate a crypt-encoded empty string value. In some cases, it 
may be
> > desired to have no value specified for a user's password. By using a
> > value "-" for a password, no value will be set in the shadow value.
> 
> I fail to see how that is different from using an empty password as
> (without quotes): "="
> 
> From man 5 passwd:
> 
>     The encrypted password field may be blank, in which case no 
password
>     is required to authenticate as the specified login name. However,
>     some applications which read the /etc/passwd file may decide not 
to
>     permit any access at all if the password field is blank.
> 
> Thus, I believe it is safest to store an encoded empty password rather
> than set the password field empty.
> 
> Did I miss something?
> 
> Of course, the manual could be updated to reflect that a password-less
> account should use "=" in the password field.
> 
> Regards,
> Yann E. MORIN.

Logging into a session with an encoded empty password will prompt me to 
enter a password since it doesn't know the password is empty. In this 
case, I would simply just hit enter to supply an empty password and it 
would authenticate.

If I alternatively set the password field blank, my login session will 
not prompt a password and will just login (since it knows there is no 
password set). This is what I'm hoping to achieve for the current target 
I'm developing.