dropbear still requires password when password is blank

[Grant Edwards]

On 2012-04-26, Paul Smith <paul at mad-scientist.net> wrote:
> On Thu, 2012-04-26 at 15:33 +0000, Grant Edwards wrote:
>> I'm trying to switch from the openssh server to dropbear's server on
>> an embedded system, and I've run into one snag.  I've enabled the
>> "allow blank password" feature, but dropbear still prompts for a
>> password on accounts that have blank passwords.  That's "wrong" -- or
>> at least it's different than what openssh, telnetd, login do.
>
> I've not been following dropbear development but a number of years ago,
> dropbear didn't support no-password login (as root for sure).  I created
> a patch and submitted it to the dropbear list.  Not sure if it (or
> something like it) was integrated.

It was.

There is now an ALLOW_BLANK_PASSWORD feature.  It allows blank
passwords, but it doesn't bypass the requirement that the user enter a
password (which is what pretty much everything else that deals with
passwords does).  It's a seemingly trivial thing, but it breaks all my
test scripts that use "ssh" and "scp" to do stuff.

-- 
Grant Edwards               grant.b.edwards        Yow! Bo Derek ruined
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