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NAME

passwd - password file

SYNOPSIS

/etc/passwd

DESCRIPTION

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:gcos-field: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.

EXAMPLE

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::::::

SEE ALSO

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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