[SOLARIS] what are the difference between /etc/passwd and /etc/shdow

chao_ping

Should be:
The first file contains user information, except for the password.
And the second file contains the encrypted password.

northeast1

when create user ,admintool or useradd will afffect the contents of passwd
and shadow,why not concatenate two files into one?
for example:username:passwd:userid:gid:path:shell:min:max:....
if so,will  not find faults  except  length of file contents

soh

shadow只有root可以读

clu65

In the early days of UNIX, there is only one file /etc/passwd, which also contains the password. Because people can crack the password using dictionary attack if they know the encrypted password. Then Unix put those information into two files: passwd and shadow. As SOH pointed it out, only root can read shadow, thus make it even harder(or practically impossible) to crack the password.