Need help understanding this
 

Yes, it is homework but I am not asking for the answer.

I'm taking a class on operating systems and we are entering an intro to the cli in Linux (after completing a rather boring Windows XP Command Line section).

The teacher has given the following question:

Q: View the file /etc/passwd. This is a file that lists all of the users who have accounts on the host computer followed by a colon character and other user information. The first user ID in this list is root – the system administrator.

The first sub-question to this was who is the second user listed. That part I understand. Root was first, bin was second.

The next sub-question to this is:

What are two other names for this user?

That is, what are the two other names for the bin user. I went to a website that gave me some minor details/explanation on this particular file but not enough to really answer this question. That location is below:

http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/underst...d-file-format/

Again, from that information I'm still unclear as too exactly what the two users/usernames are.

I'm not asking for the answer but shoot, an explanation would be great. I'm not new to Linux but these kinds of details are not something I've ever worked with before.

An odd question ... I guess he wants to hear that root = Superuser or Administrator
or something the like. Looking at /etc/passwd won't tell you that, though.


Cheers,
Tink

On Debian (GNU/Linux, Linux is only the kernel), the second is daemon, third is bin, fourth is sys.
But have no clue what they are used for :)
SuperUser is another name for root..
Weird question..

http://www.unix.org.ua/orelly/networ...is/ch04_01.htm

It's possible that the /etc/passwd file contains multiple users with the same UID. So there would be multiple usernames, but the same user. See the link I posted.