Am 21. Feb, 2002 schwätzte Matt Alexander so:

> David's response is correct, but it doesn't answer the original question.
> The reason for passwd- and shadow- are to keep a backup of the previous
> passwd and shadow files.  If you add a new user to the system using
> useradd, for example, then your current passwd file will be moved to
> passwd-.  If you somehow hose your passwd file, then you could always
> recover the most recent version by moving passwd- to passwd.

Also if you change/delete a user using userdel and that user isn't in
/etc/shadow- you get a warning. It's inconsequential unless that user was
put in by a cracker.

ciao,

der.hans
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