more questions regarding password hashes

[Brandon McCombs <bmccombs@ma.rr.com>]

I actually read the manpage this time on password-crypt-salt-format but 
still have some questions.  It seems that only one salt format can be 
specified at a time but I'm wondering about the salt itself.  A user can 
never specify what the salt string will be since the 2nd paragraph of 
that setting's description states the conversion will be substituted 
with a string of random characters, is that correct?  And after reading 
the crypt(3) manpage it seems that the salt only applies to {CRYPT} 
passwords so that means it won't work (or be used) for SHA passwords 
(making them SSHA). Is that correct?   I would guess it isn't correct 
based on the next paragraph.

The manpage states the default hash is SSHA (although I recently found 
out that on Debian with OpenLDAP 2.2.30 cleartext is the default) so I 
guess the salts do work with SHA to make SSHA passwords. If that is the 
case how does one have control over whether a salted or unsalted 
password is created if programmatically modifying a password by using 
the LDAP password extension or some other API? Is it a matter of either 
having salted or unsalted passwords (but not both at the same time) 
depending on whether the password-crypt-salt-format setting is configured?

One last question, if a salt is used with MD5 for example, is the 
password's hash prefixed with {SMD5} or is {MD5} still used?

All these hashes are confusing so I'm trying to get things clear in my head.

thanks