If SCO OpenServer is configured for large passwords, i.e. u_pwseg is greater than 1 in /etc/auth/system/default, then user authentication in auth-passwd.c will fail for users whose passwords are longer than 8 characters. The "traditional" level of security installs with u_pwseg#1, so most users would never encounter this problem. This has been an issue in openssh since I started using it several versions ago. The fix is to use bigcrypt() rather than crypt() for OpenServer. bigcrypt() works in all cases I believe, regardless of password size or u_pwseg setting. Below is a patch to auth-passwd.c which corrects the problem. I subscribed to the openssh-unix-dev list just today to receive any replies/comments to this post. Apologies if this has been addressed before. man default(F), prpw(F), secdefs(ADM) *** auth-passwd.c-orig Wed Jul 4 00:21:15 2001 --- auth-passwd.c Wed Jan 2 14:17:21 2002 *************** *** 212,218 **** --- 212,222 ---- else encrypted_password = crypt(password, salt); # else + # ifdef HAVE_SCO_PROTECTED_PW + encrypted_password = bigcrypt(password, salt); + # else encrypted_password = crypt(password, salt); + # endif /* HAVE_SCO_PROTECTED_PW */ # endif /* __hpux */ #endif /* HAVE_MD5_PASSWORDS */ -- Roger Cornelius rac at tenzing.org