How can I prevent Virtualmin from storing passwords in cleartext?

Question

I am really surprised at this behavior. In Virtualmin, I can see the password for any SSH user by clicking the "(Show..)" link next to the "Password ( ) Leave unchanged" option in a variety of locations. I have found that the passwords for all users including users with SSH access are stored in cleartext files in /etc/webmin/... This seems like an unnecessary risk! How can I prevent Virtualmin from storing passwords in this manner?

Answer 1

The last release of Virtualmin (3.88.gpl) has the feature "Hashed password storage"

So it's now possible:

Hashed password storage

Storage of plaintext passwords for virtual servers and mailboxes can now be disabled on a per-template basis. Virtualmin will instead store only hashed passwords in multiple formats, which prevents passwords from being compromised if the system is hacked. This feature should ideally be enabled before any virtual servers have been created.

Answer 2

Sadly enough it seems like this is just not possible. From a post on VirtualMin's forums:

At the moment, there is no way to turn this off. Virtualmin keeps the original passwords for mailbox users so that it can re-encrypt them in different formats when needed - for example, if you enable MySQL, DAV or SVN access for a user, their password has to be re-hashed into the appropriate format for MySQL or Apache digest authentication files.

I suppose an option could be added to disable the storage of plain-text passwords, but for most users it would come at the expense of usability.

I refuse to accept this and am trying to figure out some sort o workaround. When I have one, I'll post a new answer here...