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    Beware of this. An empty field means there is no password, and you just have to press ENTER to login, at least in the console. Commented May 4, 2017 at 12:28
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    From man shadow regarding encrypted password field: "This field may be empty, in which case no passwords are required to authenticate as the specified login name." <-- Leaving this field emtpy results in open account and this should indeed be avoided! Commented Oct 15, 2019 at 12:48
  • Note that many SSH implementations block login on null passworded accounts by default: sudo /usr/sbin/sshd -T| grep empty would return: "permitemptypasswords no" Commented Nov 4, 2019 at 15:58
  • Changed the answer to clarify that I meant key-only login. Commented Apr 13, 2020 at 1:26
  • Another note, why one should never use empty passwords. Think about what happens if you install any software that uses "linux-authentication"? E.g. phpMyAdmin would than allow logins without a password. This can be very dangerous. And key only users should have "!" Commented Nov 3, 2020 at 6:12