shadow/man/passwd.5

.\"$Id: passwd.5,v 1.15 2005/04/02 16:10:24 kloczek Exp $
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.TH PASSWD 5
.SH NAME
passwd \- The password file
.SH DESCRIPTION
\fI/etc/passwd\fR contains various pieces of information for each user
account. Included is:
.IP "" .5i
Login name
.IP "" .5i
Optional encrypted password
.IP "" .5i
Numerical user ID
.IP "" .5i
Numerical group ID
.IP "" .5i
User name or comment field
.IP "" .5i
User home directory
.IP "" .5i
User command interpreter
.PP
The password field may not be filled if shadow passwords have been enabled.
If shadow passwords are being used, the encrypted password will be found in
\fI/etc/shadow\fR. The encrypted password consists of characters from the
64 characters alphabet a thru z, A thru Z, 0 thru 9, \. and /. Optionally it
can start with a "$" character. This means the encrypted password was generated
using another (not DES) algorithm. For example if it starts with "$1$" it means
the MD5\-based algorithm was used.
.PP
Refer to \fBcrypt\fR(3) for details on how this string is interpreted.
.PP
The comment field is used by various system utilities, such as
\fBfinger\fR(1). Three additional values may be present in the comment
field.
They are:
.IP "" .5i
pri= \- set initial value of nice
.IP "" .5i
umask= \- set initial value of umask
.IP "" .5i
ulimit= \- set initial value of ulimit
.PP
These fields are separated from each other and from any other comment field
by a comma.
.PP
The home directory field provides the name of the initial working directory.
\fBLogin\fR uses this information to set the value of
the \fBHOME\fR environmental variable.
.PP
The command interpreter field provides the name of the user's command
language interpreter, or the name of the initial program to execute.
\fBLogin\fR uses this information to set the value of the
\fBSHELL\fR environmental variable.
If this field is empty, it defaults to the value \fB/bin/sh\fR.
.SH FILES
\fI/etc/passwd\fR	\- user account information
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR login (1),
.BR passwd (1),
.BR su (1),
.BR shadow (5),
.BR pwconv (8),
.BR pwunconv (8),
.BR sulogin (8)
.SH AUTHOR
Julianne Frances Haugh (jockgrrl@ix.netcom.com)