Where User Account and Group Information Is Stored

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This section covers the following information:

Fields in the passwd File
Default passwd File
Fields in the shadow File
Fields in the group File
Default group File
Commands for Obtaining User Account Information

Depending on your site policy, user account and group information can be stored in your local system's /etc files or in a name or directory service as follows:

The NIS name service information is stored in maps.
The LDAP directory service information is stored in indexed database files.

Note - To avoid confusion, the location of the user account and group information is generically referred to as a file rather than as a database, table, or map.

Most user account information is stored in the passwd file. Password information is stored as follows:

In the passwd file when you are using NIS
In the /etc/shadow file when you are using /etc files
In the people container when you are using LDAP

Password aging is available when you are using LDAP, but not NIS.

Group information is stored in the group file for NIS. For LDAP, group information is stored in the group container.