Password authentication systems

[AlbaClause]

neokosmos at gmail.com wrote:

> This may only be tangentially related to Python, but since I am coding
> a password authentication system in Python, I thought I would ask here.
> 
> In Linux (and presumably other *NIX systems that support it), when
> shadow passwords are enabled, the actual password is not stored.
> Instead an encrypted version is stored.  Then, to authenticate the
> password, the system re-encrypts the user's input to see if it matches
> the stored, encrypted version.
> 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that all Linux passwords are
encrypted whether you enable shadow passwords or not.   I believe that when
you enable shadow passwords, the encrypted passwords are stored in a file
other than 'passwd'.  Is this not correct?