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authorLudovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org>2019-03-04 13:55:41 +0100
committerLudovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org>2019-03-04 15:22:58 +0100
commitc483c5c82c129b51ef6068fad3d3f0fbca1f5df1 (patch)
tree7e0d90a78de894431abcba70a9f0ddff5f147964 /doc
parent56a93cb975ddc33d50183fb122e2aafda026f18e (diff)
doc: Better explain the 'password' field of <user-account>.
* doc/guix.texi (User Accounts): Provide an example use of 'crypt', and mention the security implications.
Diffstat (limited to 'doc')
-rw-r--r--doc/guix.texi29
1 files changed, 24 insertions, 5 deletions
diff --git a/doc/guix.texi b/doc/guix.texi
index 9fb5cff06d..7fcfcb1454 100644
--- a/doc/guix.texi
+++ b/doc/guix.texi
@@ -10695,6 +10695,7 @@ account. System accounts are sometimes treated specially; for instance,
graphical login managers do not list them.
@anchor{user-account-password}
+@cindex password, for user accounts
@item @code{password} (default: @code{#f})
You would normally leave this field to @code{#f}, initialize user
passwords as @code{root} with the @command{passwd} command, and then let
@@ -10702,11 +10703,29 @@ users change it with @command{passwd}. Passwords set with
@command{passwd} are of course preserved across reboot and
reconfiguration.
-If you @emph{do} want to have a preset password for an account, then
-this field must contain the encrypted password, as a string.
-@xref{crypt,,, libc, The GNU C Library Reference Manual}, for more information
-on password encryption, and @ref{Encryption,,, guile, GNU Guile Reference
-Manual}, for information on Guile's @code{crypt} procedure.
+If you @emph{do} want to set an initial password for an account, then
+this field must contain the encrypted password, as a string. You can use the
+@code{crypt} procedure for this purpose:
+
+@example
+(user-account
+ (name "charlie")
+ (home-directory "/home/charlie")
+ (group "users")
+
+ ;; Specify a SHA-512-hashed initial password.
+ (password (crypt "InitialPassword!" "$6$abc")))
+@end example
+
+@quotation Note
+The hash of this initial password will be available in a file in
+@file{/gnu/store}, readable by all the users, so this method must be used with
+care.
+@end quotation
+
+@xref{Passphrase Storage,,, libc, The GNU C Library Reference Manual}, for
+more information on password encryption, and @ref{Encryption,,, guile, GNU
+Guile Reference Manual}, for information on Guile's @code{crypt} procedure.
@end table
@end deftp