I needed to get access to the user information to do login/validation via an SSL connection and encountered the same problem with receiving '*' in the password field. After checking the documentation on posix_getpwnam, I saw a previous solution involving coding a C program. This was a bit bulky for me so I came up with my own solution.
Variations on this theme can probably be done to make the solution more programmer/reader friendly, but the way I did it accomplished the task that I needed to do.
IF the information you need to get from posix_getpwnam comes from a host participating in an NIS network, you can accomplish the same thing with the following command:
$autharray = split(":",`ypmatch $USER passwd`);
(pretty long explanation for such a short solution huh?)
You'll have to get at the fields by their index number ($autharray[0], $autharray[1], ...) using this method.
To create an associative array that is plug-in compatible with the posix_getpwnam function, you'll probably need to use the 'list' specifier to do the assignments.
I hope this helps someone.
--S
