what does the last column in /etc/shadow file indicate??
i read man page,it tells its FLAG..but i am not able to understand exactly why its there 
thanks in advance,
shekhar
RaNdOmUsEr:no_that_not_a_password:0:7:91:7:::3
Are you talking about the one that increments each times there is a failed login? (the one with a 3 in my example).
ya thats what i meant but why its written there in man page " flag Failed login count in low order four bits; remainder
reserved for future use, set to zero "....what does it mean?
Interesting enough ... Here is my "guess".
I traduce low order four by �the least important bites� or �the ones on the right� as opposed to high order ones. Let's say I have the following:
01010001010010
The low order four would be 0010 (2).
I believe that the fields probably have a certain maximum length (integer?) and they decided to use only the last 4.
I tested and the counter stops at 15 so it really seems to be using only the last four bits, wathever data type it uses.
"flag" entry in /etc/shadow through history:
Solaris8 man:
Last change: 10 Dec 1991
Reserved for future use, set to zero. Currently not used.
Solaris 9 man:
Last change: 12 Sep 2002
Reserved for future use, set to zero. Currently not used.
Solaris 10 man:
Last change: 15 Sep 2005
Failed login count in low order four bits; remainder reserved for future use, set to zero.
1 Like
oh k..great..got it now..thanx a lot:)