PASSWD
Section: File Formats and Configuration (5)
Updated: 02/01/2026
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NAME
passwd - the password file
DESCRIPTION
/etc/passwd
contains one line for each user account, with seven fields delimited by colons (lq:rq). These fields are:
-
*
login name
-
*
optional encrypted password
-
*
numerical user ID
-
*
numerical group ID
-
*
user name or comment field
-
*
user home directory
-
*
optional user command interpreter
If the
password
field is a lower-case
lqxrq, then the encrypted password is actually stored in the
shadow(5)
file instead; there
must
be a corresponding line in the
/etc/shadow
file, or else the user account is invalid.
The encrypted
password
field may be empty, in which case no password is required to authenticate as the specified login name. However, some applications which read the
/etc/passwd
file may decide not to permit
any
access at all if the
password
field is blank.
A
password
field which starts with an exclamation mark means that the password is locked. The remaining characters on the line represent the
password
field before the password was locked.
Refer to
crypt(3)
for details on how this string is interpreted.
If the password field contains some string that is not a valid result of
crypt(3), for instance ! or *, the user will not be able to use a unix password to log in (but the user may log in the system by other means).
The comment field, also known as the gecos field, is used by various system utilities, such as
finger(1). The use of an ampersand here will be replaced by the capitalised login name when the field is used or displayed by such system utilities.
The home directory field provides the name of the initial working directory. The
login
program uses this information to set the value of the
$HOME
environmental variable.
The command interpreter field provides the name of the user's command language interpreter, or the name of the initial program to execute. The
login
program uses this information to set the value of the
$SHELL
environmental variable. If this field is empty, it defaults to the value
/bin/sh.
FILES
/etc/passwd
-
User account information.
/etc/shadow
-
Optional encrypted password file.
/etc/passwd-
-
Backup file for /etc/passwd.
Note that this file is used by the tools of the shadow toolsuite, but not by all user and password management tools.
SEE ALSO
crypt(3),
getent(1),
getpwnam(3),
login(1),
passwd(1),
pwck(8),
pwconv(8),
pwunconv(8),
shadow(5),
su(1),
sulogin(8).
Index
- NAME
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
- FILES
-
- SEE ALSO
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