dovecot - Sep 2006 - PAM authentication problem: MD5 vs crypt

Here's a strange one. I have Dovecot set up on Solaris 9. The auth portion 
of the config is straight out of the box. Using PAM. We have most users in 
a dbm file which is just a series of key/value pairs: key is a username, 
and value is a string equivalent to a shadow entry. nsswitch.conf entry: 
passwd files dbm.

For historical reasons, some users have a classic 13-character Unix crypt 
password hash, while others have a 34-character MD5 hash. Here's the 
situation:

User location         pw Hash           Auth succeeds/fails
----------------------------------------------  
files                       crypt                 succeeds
dbm                       crypt                 succeeds
files                       MD5                  succeeds
dbm                       MD5                  FAILS


After two days of research, trussing, and etc, I am stumped. Does anyone 
have a thought?

-Brian

A glaring omission in my original post: This problem only appears with 
Dovecot. Other services, including UW-IMAP, work for all four instances 
noted below.

-Brian

On Sep 22 2006, bhayden at umn.edu wrote:
>Here's a strange one. I have Dovecot set up on Solaris 9. The auth
portion
>of the config is straight out of the box. Using PAM. We have most users in 
>a dbm file which is just a series of key/value pairs: key is a username, 
>and value is a string equivalent to a shadow entry. nsswitch.conf entry: 
>passwd files dbm.
>
>For historical reasons, some users have a classic 13-character Unix crypt 
>password hash, while others have a 34-character MD5 hash. Here's the 
>situation:
>
>User location         pw Hash           Auth succeeds/fails
>----------------------------------------------  
>files                       crypt                 succeeds
>dbm                       crypt                 succeeds
>files                       MD5                  succeeds
>dbm                       MD5                  FAILS
>
>
>After two days of research, trussing, and etc, I am stumped. Does anyone 
>have a thought?
>
>-Brian
>