Solaris and the "news" user

[Bill Sellers]

Another point we may want to address is the configuration of the news user 
account on Solaris.  It appears that Sun has altered the behavior in 
Solaris 8 (with patches), Solaris 9 and 10 of locked user accounts.  Sun 
makes a distinction of non-login accounts (NP) and locked accounts 
(*LK*).  If someone configures the news user to have a locked account 
(*LK*), then the news.daily will not run in cron.  The options are to have 
a real password, or to use NP.

If the news account is not normally used for interactive logins, then in 
/etc/shadow on Solaris, we need:

news:NP:::::::

Can we add a warning to the INSTALL file and to the FAQ about this issue?

References:

http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetkey=1-9-72008-1&searchclause=Patch%20Club%20Report
http://www.securitydocs.com/library/2636
http://sagewire.sage.org/article.pl?sid=03/07/27/0057258&mode=thread

Thanks,
Bill