When there is a - entry in the passwd file, eg: -ftp that either has zero or one colon's on its line, finger segfaults Starting program: /usr/bin/finger test Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault. strncpy (s1=0x804cdc0 "", s2=0x0, n=1024) at ../sysdeps/generic/strncpy.c:41 41 ../sysdeps/generic/strncpy.c: No such file or directory. (gdb) bt #0 strncpy (s1=0x804cdc0 "", s2=0x0, n=1024) at ../sysdeps/generic/strncpy.c:41 #1 0x804a936 in strcpy () at ../sysdeps/generic/strcpy.c:30 #2 0x8049270 in strcpy () at ../sysdeps/generic/strcpy.c:30 #3 0x8049381 in strcpy () at ../sysdeps/generic/strcpy.c:30 #4 0x80490f7 in strcpy () at ../sysdeps/generic/strcpy.c:30 #5 0x4002e1eb in __libc_start_main (main=0x8049000 <strcpy+204>, argc=2, argv=0xbffffd64, init=0x8048b94, fini=0x804b01c <strcpy+8424>, rtld_fini=0x4000a610 <_dl_fini>, stack_end=0xbffffd5c) at ../sysdeps/generic/libc-start.c:90