Manual pages › File formats and configuration files (4)
passwd(4)
password file
From the original Amiga UNIX 2.1 manual. Some things it mentions may not be in this release.
Also by this name: passwd(1), General commands
NAME
passwd - password file
DESCRIPTION
The file /etc/passwd contains for each user the following information:
login name dummy password numerical user ID numerical group ID comment initial working directory program to use as shell
passwd is an ASCII file. Each field within each user's entry is separated from the next by a colon. The comment field can contain any desired information. Each user is separated from the next by a new-line. If the shell field is null, /usr/bin/sh is used.
This file has user login information and general read permission. It can therefore be used, for example, to map numerical user IDs to names.
The password field consists of the character x. This field remains only for compatibility reasons. Password information is contained in the file /etc/shadow; see shadow(4).
FILES
/etc/passwd /etc/shadow
SEE ALSO
pwconv(1M), useradd(1M), usermod(1M), userdel(1M), sha- dow(4), group(4), unistd(4) a64l(3C), getpwent(3C), putpwent(3C) in the Programmer's Reference Manual login(1), passwd(1) in the User's Reference Manual