stunnel entry in /etc/shadow file

Question

I have an unknown entry in my /etc/shadow file

stunnel4:!:11111:0:99999:7:::

(11111) are numbers that I removed.

Can somebody explain me what application will add this entry under ubuntu 14.04? This entry is not added if I install ubuntu on a new laptop.

Answer 1

When you install the stunnel or stunnel4 package, or a package that depends on it, this user is created. It's used for "privilegue separation", that means, the stunnel service uses it to run tasks that do not need superuser privilegues.

stunnel is a program to handle the client or server side of an SSL/TLS connection as "add-on" for existing programs, or as a quick and easy way to do SSL/TLS.