What is the responsibility of /etc/passwd file in RHEL system

Asked By james yorath 20 points N/A Posted on - 08/28/2012

Hi Saul,

Thank you for your previous answer, I found /etc/passwd file but I don’t understand few contents of this file,

Can you help me to figure out this please?

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• Question Category: Red Hat Linux

Best Answer by Britnu Salu

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Answered By Britnu Salu 0 points N/A #132885

What is the responsibility of /etc/passwd file in RHEL system

Hi Yorath,

This is important question and /etc/passwd is also a very important file in RHEL system, its responsibility is to keep data of users and groups. /etc/passwd file contains seven fields are given below:

 

1, user name

2, user password place holder

3, user ID number

4, user group ID number of the user’s primary group

5, GECOS field (typically contains the user’s real name)

6, home directory

7, shell to be run when a user login

 

I hope you got the answer.

 

Britnu Salu

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Answered By Carl Jack 10 points N/A #132886

What is the responsibility of /etc/passwd file in RHEL system

Hello James,

The /etc/passwd file usually holds the essential information that is required during login, for instance the user account information.

The /etc/passwd is usually a text file, and it has got a list of the system's accounts, and for that matter it gives each account some useful information for instance the user ID, the group ID, the home directory as well as shell and so forth.

This file should be able to have general read permission as many utilities, for instance less use it to map user IDs to user names, but write access only for the super-user (root).

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Carl

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• Posted on - 08/28/2012
• Question Category: Red Hat Linux