shadow/man/passwd.5

.\" Copyright 1989 - 1990, Julianne Frances Haugh
.\" All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
.\" are met:
.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
.\"    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
.\" 3. Neither the name of Julianne F. Haugh nor the names of its contributors
.\"    may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
.\"    without specific prior written permission.
.\"
.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY JULIE HAUGH AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
.\" ARE DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL JULIE HAUGH OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
.\" SUCH DAMAGE.
.\"
.\"	$Id: passwd.5,v 1.5 2000/08/26 18:27:17 marekm Exp $
.\"
.TH PASSWD 5
.SH NAME
passwd \- The password file
.SH DESCRIPTION
.I passwd
contains various pieces of information for each user account.
Included is
.IP "" .5i
Login name
.IP "" .5i
Optional encrypted password
.IP "" .5i
Numerical user ID
.IP "" .5i
Numerical group ID
.IP "" .5i
User name or comment field
.IP "" .5i
User home directory
.IP "" .5i
User command interpreter
.PP
The password field may not be filled if shadow passwords
have been enabled.
If shadow passwords are being used, the encrypted password will
be found in \fI/etc/shadow\fR.
The encryped password consists of 13 characters from the
64 character alphabet
a thru z, A thru Z, 0 thru 9, \. and /.
Refer to \fBcrypt\fR(3) for details on how this string is
interpreted.
.PP
An optional password age string may follow the encrypted
password, separated by a comma, from the same alphabet
as the password itself.
The first character gives the number of weeks during which the
password is valid.
The second character gives the number of weeks which must pass
before the user is permitted to change the password.
The last two characters give the week since Jan 1970 when the
password was last changed.
When the number of weeks during which the password is valid
have passed, the user will be required to provide a new
password.
.PP
The comment field is used by various system utilities, such as
\fBfinger\fR(1).
Three additional values may be present in the comment field.
They are
.IP "" .5i
pri= \- set initial value of nice
.IP "" .5i
umask= \- set initial value of umask
.IP "" .5i
ulimit= \- set initial value of ulimit
.PP
These fields are separated from each other and from any other
comment field by a comma.
.PP
The home directory field provides the name of the initial
working directory.
\fBLogin\fR uses this information to set the value of
the \fBHOME\fR environmental variable.
.PP
The command interpreter field provides the name of the user's
command language interpreter, or the name of the initial program
to execute.
\fBLogin\fR uses this information to set the value of the
\fBSHELL\fR environmental variable.
If this field is empty, it defaults to the value \fB/bin/sh\fR.
.SH FILES
/etc/passwd \- user account information
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR login (1),
.BR passwd (1),
.BR su (1),
.BR sulogin (8),
.BR shadow (5),
.BR pwconv (8),
.BR pwunconv (8)
.SH AUTHOR
Julianne Frances Haugh (jfh@austin.ibm.com)