--- man-pages-2.48/man5/passwd.5.pom	2007-04-13 00:42:49.000000000 +0200
+++ man-pages-2.48/man5/passwd.5	2007-05-11 10:33:22.000000000 +0200
@@ -46,11 +46,20 @@
 basic assumption used to be that of a friendly user-community.
 These days many people run some version of the shadow password suite, where
 .I /etc/passwd
-has asterisks (*) instead of encrypted passwords,
+has "x" instead of encrypted passwords,
 and the encrypted passwords are in
 .I /etc/shadow
 which is readable by the superuser only.
 .PP
+If the encrypted password, whether in /etc/passwd or in /etc/shadow, is 
+an empty string, login is allowed without even asking for a password. 
+Note that this functionality may be intentionally disabled in applications, 
+or configurable (for example using the "nullok" or "nonull" arguments to 
+pam_unix.so). 
+.PP 
+If the encrypted password in /etc/passwd is "*NP*" (without the quotes), 
+the shadow record should be obtained from a NIS+ server. 
+.PP
 Regardless of whether shadow passwords are used, many sysadmins
 use an asterisk in the encrypted password field to make sure
 that this user can not authenticate him- or herself using a