On Sat, 28 Oct 2000 10:06:56 PDT, Peter Jay Salzman writes: >also, i noticed that some accounts which are disabled are given a shell of >/bin/false: > > ftp:x:100:65534::/home/ftp:/bin/false > >tiger seemed to hate this too. i tried playing around with /bin/false. >can't seem to figure out what it is. whatever it is, it's tiny. only 4 kb >long.
there are /bin/true (which gives a return code of 0 when run) and /bin/ false (which returns 1) (both values IIRC). very handy if you want to do something like `if (<bla> || /bin/true)` for some reason. giving a shell with /bin/false effectively disables the account´s possibility to get a login shell, but (as in case with ftp) shouldn´t hinder other services (eg ftp, pop3, .forward etc.). all of the above is in theory, because I tried that some time ago but couldn´t get an ftp-login when the shell was /bin/false, but I remember reading about it somewhere... &rw -- / Ing. Robert Waldner | Network Engineer | T: +43 1 89933 F: x533 \ \ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | KPNQwest/AT | Diefenbachg. 35, A-1150 /
