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passwd - password file
/etc/passwd
The passwd file contains basic information about each user's
account. It contains a one-line entry for each authorized
user, of the form:
username:password:uid:gid:gcosfield:home_directory:login_shell
Required Fields:
- username
- The user's login name, not more than eight
characters.
- password
- The user's password, in an encrypted form
that is generated by the UNIX passwd function.
However, if the encypted password is
stored in /etc/shadow, (see shadow(5)), the
password field of /etc/passwd is empty.
- uid
- A unique interger assigned by the UNIX administrator
to represent the user's account;
its value is usually between 0 and 32767.
- gid
- An interger representing the group to which
the user has been assigned. Groups are created
by the UNIX system administrator; each is
assigned a unique integer whose value is generally
between 0 and 32767.
- gcos-field
- The user's real name. The name may be of any
length; it may include capital letters as
well as lower case, and may include blanks.
The name may be empty.
home_directory The user's home directory. The home directory
field may be empty.
- login-shell
- The default shell launched at login. This
field may be empty.
Here is a sample passwd file when the /etc/shadow does not
exist:
root:bDPu/ys5PBoYU:0:1:Operator:/:/bin/csh
dave:Qs5I6pBb2rJDA:1234:12:David:/u/dave:/bin/csh
dan:MNRWDsW/srMfE:2345:23:Dan::
jim:HNRyuuiuMFerx:::::
If the system keeps the passwords in the /etc/shadow, the
file /etc/passwd would be exactly the same but the password
field would be empty.
root::0:1:Operator:/:/bin/csh
dave::1234:12:David:/u/dave:/bin/csh
dan::2345:23:Dan::
jim::::::
na_shadow(5), na_options(1), na_nis(8), na_pcnfsd(8),
na_nsswitch.conf(5), na_quota(1), na_cifs_access(1),
na_cifs_setup(1)
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