How to access /etc/shadow file without root

It is readable only by the root user or super user. To see this feature in action, access a root shell and run following commands. In Ubuntu Linux, by default root account is disabled.

Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. I am reading a book on ethical hacking, and it has some examples in Python which I won't post here unless asked since this isn't Stack Overflow. They can't copy it, open it; etc. Is there some brute force method? I don't know anything about these, where can I learn?

How to access /etc/shadow file without root

Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. The system I am using is a CentOS 7. Are these steps that I am following correct? Please let me know, and I can provide additional information if needed. Changing an owner group of such important file could even break some things, which is dangerous. Another problem here is that you gave this right to Nginx , a web server. Which, I suppose, runs some web application. This may seem counterproductive, but this is the way all serious systems do such things: they include private secure proxy service which does all security checks and web front end only can talk to this proxy service to have some access to sensitive data or do other sensitive things. For example, this is the way Proxmox VE is built: there is pvedaemon which does dangerous things, and pveproxy a web server only talks to pvedaemon when it needs to do such things. The third problem is that you access this file at all. What you intend to do? This file is a part of PAM suite. What if some system authentication is modified so it is not using a shadow file, or it is moved?

The PAM exists in part for this to be unneccessary.

It has been a while since I worked on anything PAM related, but I recently became interested in exploring how to convert the su binary to work with capabilities only, and not require it being setuid-root. Recall, in this environment , being root comes with no super user privilege. However, we shouldn't ever forget that root owns a lot of system files! That was a set of applications those of us, that originally developed Linux-PAM, wrote to prototype modules and libpam improvements against. I had a prototyping project related to libcap now and, while a couple of decades had elapsed, it was fun to take that code out for a spin again.

Ask questions, find answers and collaborate at work with Stack Overflow for Teams. Explore Teams. Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. I am reading a book on ethical hacking, and it has some examples in Python which I won't post here unless asked since this isn't Stack Overflow. They can't copy it, open it; etc.

How to access /etc/shadow file without root

It is readable only by the root user or super user. To see this feature in action, access a root shell and run following commands. In Ubuntu Linux, by default root account is disabled. If you are following tutorial on Ubuntu Linux, access a super user shell and run following commands. But when we performed the same action from a root user or super user account, shell allowed to it. This security feature keeps encrypted passwords safe from unauthorized users and password cracking programs. In both files, this field represents login name and stores the exactly same information. When a new user account is created, both files are updated simultaneously. This field stores actual user password in encrypted form. For encryption it uses SHA algorithm.

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Linux does not support blank password in login process. This is by design, not because it couldn't, but because we've added code to explicitly prevent it from doing so. Browse other questions tagged linux nginx shadow. In this algorithm, a random salt is mixed with original password before encryption. I've seen many examples throughout my career where developers or unknowledgeable sysadmins have run applications such as Tomcat or Apache as root. Before closing this section , since we're not actually interested in using the root identity, this version of su does not support changing user identity to that of root. The third problem is that you access this file at all. Create a free Team Why Teams? Viewed 2k times. This date is used as starting date or day in calculation by several commands and configuration files. If you want that feature, you can also use a more traditional, but actually Linux-PAM compliant , setuid-root version of su. This file is a part of PAM suite. Browse other questions tagged linux unix bsd. A user will be forced to change his password when the days set in this field and extra seven days are passed.

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This file is a part of PAM suite. Before closing this section , since we're not actually interested in using the root identity, this version of su does not support changing user identity to that of root. In order to understand how a hacker could access this file you have to think like a hacker, mainly outside the box, of what most would consider to be "normal" methods for accessing a file. Ask Question. If this field is set to blank, a user can use his password as long as he wants to use. We'll then demonstrate that our sucap version still works. In Ubuntu Linux, by default root account is disabled. Highest score default Date modified newest first Date created oldest first. This is by design, not because it couldn't, but because we've added code to explicitly prevent it from doing so. Other capabilities, needed to change network settings or insert kernel modules are not needed by the su application, so they are not provided. Systemd Units Explained with Types and States. Browse other questions tagged linux nginx shadow.