What does '*' symbol in /etc/passwd means?

[IM EMAIL ASST SYS ADMIN]

>From: KiChang Yang <e910276 at dal1.kaist.ac.kr>
>Subject: What does '*' symbol in /etc/passwd means?
>
>I'm much interested in UNIX system.
>Recently, I found this '*' curios symbol in /etc/passwd.
>For example,
>	bin:*:2:1::/bin:/bin/csh
>Could you tell me what this symbol means?

Someone answered that '*' might be a shadow password; It could be.

Also, could be a convention for locking the login.  If the superuser
had typed in the '*', then noone can log in as bin.  I know of several
systems that used the '*' symbol to lock logins.  "used" is past tense
because they ran into problems using it as it is a UNIX metacharacter.

Ken Gibson
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