Hi,
A few methods I have used in the past...

1) Make it so you use the /etc/passwd file on a *nix system. This way you already have the file provided. The only issue is you may not want to create accounts for all the users if you are just wanting to provide passworded protection for say a web offered service that uses the database. You would also be able to take advantage of say password shadowing services through system level calls as well, so you didn't have to worry about people stealing and brute forcing your password file as much.

2) Another approach is to have another unprotected database that contains a table with the encrypted passwords for the users in them. That way if you are running more than one application you can have a separate table for each. This would also mean that the person on the outside world would only have access to checking the password through your script (unless they had shell access) so that would again help with not having the entire encrypted list nicked.

Hope this helps.

Regards Paul.

In reply to Re: Best practices for database passwords by thekestrel
in thread Best practices for database passwords by Miss Brain

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