Does anyone here know of any other characters that can be used in a Unix passwd file to denote certain things about an account? I read somewhere that any non-alphanumeric character at the beginning of a password entry in the /etc/passwd file would disable the password, but some characters must have more meaning than others. For example, I know that the "*" denotes that the account is disabled not allowing users to log in. However, I just discovered on my Slackware Linux distro that you can still log into a disabled account using public-key authentication over SSH even if the account has a "*" in the passwd file. If an account has a "*" in the passwd file on an HP-UX system, however, public-key authentication is denied. I was told that a "!!" in the /etc/passwd file on an HP-UX system would allow public-key authentication, but deny standard telnet. Unfortunately, I can't test that. I have been unable to find any documentation on characters other than "*" used in /etc/passwd files. Does anyone here know of any others and what they do, exactly?