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System Administration Guide, Volume 1

Fields in the passwd File

The fields in the passwd file are separated by colons and contain the following information: 


username:password:uid:gid:comment:home-directory:login-shell

For example:


kryten:x:101:100:Kryten Series 4000 Mechanoid:/export/home/kryten:/bin/csh

The table below describes the passwd file fields.

Table 2-6 Fields in the passwd File

Field Name 

Description 

username

Contains the user or login name. User names should be unique and consist of 1-8 letters (A-Z, a-z) and numerals (0-9). The first character must be a letter, and at least one character must be a lowercase letter. User names cannot contain underscores or spaces. 

password

Contains an x, a placeholder for the encrypted password. The encrypted password is stored in the shadow file.

uid

Contains a user identification (UID) number that identifies the user to the system. UID numbers for regular users should range from 100 to 60000. All UID numbers should be unique. 

gid

Contains a group identification (GID) number that identifies the user's primary group. Each GID number must be a whole number between 0 and 60002 (60001 and 60002 are assigned to nobody and noaccess, respectively).

comment

Usually contains the full name of the user. (This field is informational only.) It is sometimes called the GECOS field because it was originally used to hold the login information needed to submit batch jobs to a mainframe running GECOS (General Electric Computer Operating System) from UNIX systems at Bell Labs. 

home-directory

Contains user's home directory path name. 

login-shell

Contains the user's default login shell, which can be /bin/sh, /bin/csh or /bin/ksh. Table 2-13 contains a description of shell features.

Default passwd File

The default Solaris passwd file contains entries for standard daemons, processes usually started at boot time to perform some system-wide task, such as printing, network administration, and port monitoring.


root:x:0:1:Super-User:/:/sbin/sh
daemon:x:1:1::/:
bin:x:2:2::/usr/bin:
sys:x:3:3::/:
adm:x:4:4:Admin:/var/adm:
lp:x:71:8:Line Printer Admin:/usr/spool/lp:
uucp:x:5:5:uucp Admin:/usr/lib/uucp:
nuucp:x:9:9:uucp Admin:/var/spool/uucppublic:/usr/lib/uucp/uucico
listen:x:37:4:Network Admin:/usr/net/nls:
nobody:x:60001:60001:Nobody:/:
noaccess:x:60002:60002:No Access User:/:
nobody4:x:65534:65534:SunOS 4.x Nobody:/:
Table 2-7 Default passwd File Entries

User Name 

User ID 

Description 

root

0

Superuser account 

daemon

1

Umbrella system daemon associated with updating calendars, and so forth 

bin

2

Administrative daemon associated with running system binaries to perform some routine system task 

sys

3

Administrative daemon associated with system logging or updating files in temporary directories 

adm

4

Administrative daemon associated with system logging 

 

71

Line printer daemon 

uucp

5

uucp daemon 

nuucp

6

uucp daemon 

listen

37

Network listener daemon 

nobody

60001

Anonymous user account, assigned by an NFS server when a request is received from an unauthorized root user. The nobody user account is assigned to software processes that do not need nor should have any special permissions.  

noaccess

60002

Account assigned to a user or a process that needs access to a system through some application but without actually logging in. 

nobody4

65534

SunOS 4.0 or 4.1 version of nobody user account.