crypt command

[Mehmet Musa_2]

Hi there,

I would be interested to find out if you are making use of the crypt command, as described in section 1 of the man pages.

Please email your feedback, if any, to mehmet@hp.com.

Thanks.
Mehmet

[Patrick Wallek]

I have used the crypt command some, though not extensively. It is very useful to have around.

[Jeff Schussele]

Hi Mehmet,

Well, the OS itself uses it every single time a user PW is read or written.

I've used it occasionally to encrypt e-mail attachments.

Rgds,
Jeff

[John Palmer]

Hi,

Yes, make use of it for hiding Oracle passwords that are used in scripts. It's not available (as a command) in AIX which is a pain, are you thinking of withdrawing it?

Regards,
John

[Wodisch]

Hi Mehmet,

the system call "crypt(2)" and the command "crypt(1)" are NOT the same, there's a lot of differences!
The system call is using 64 bits of encryption, repeated 21 time to slow it down.
But the command line is to encrypt files and is actually weakend to the point where everybody (with a pocket calculator) is able to decrypt it...
And the command was even banned for many years, due to US export regulations (that's why AIX does not deliver it). Even the man page was not available for years, say, under HP-UX (and others).
If you are about to encrypt something, don't even think about using "crypt(1)", but go for something like PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) or the like.

FWIW,
Wodisch

[A. Clay Stephenson]

The crypt command is also used by vi to encipher/decipher plaintext. For example, vi -x myfile, will prompt you for a key before opening the file. If you attempt to then edit the file without -x, it's gibberish. There are many more secure options around nowadays.

Surprisingly, the crypt(3C) library routine does not do encrytion/decryption but is rather a hash. The process (unlike encryption) is intentionally not reversible.

[Frank Slootweg]

Duplicate thread.

See also

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0x065e28c64656d71190080090279cd0f9,00.html