Thanx for the answers .... but my philosophical doubt permain.... Ok.. all users' lines are copied by hesiod from, usually, /etc/athena/nameserver/passwd.db into the /etc/passwd when an user logs into the machine ... but where are archieved the encrypted password of the users to validate them when they logs into ? .. Into 'passwd.db' we've got user:*:id:gid:etc.etc. and not the encrypted password .. but when the user logs into the machine we've got into the /etc/passwd : user:encr.pass:id:gid:etc.etc. (of course if there isn't other shadow systems in surplus) .. To validate an user somewhere should be the encrypted passwords .. where ? .. thanx in advance .... Davide Melchiorre..