/etc/passwd, /etc/shadow, /etc/group? Educate me :)!

nutnut · 06-11-2005, 06:34 AM

Hi,

Could anyone give me some information on /etc/passwd, /etc/group, and /etc/shadow?

Understanding of these seems to be a big part of FTP config, and I'm sure it'd just be good for me to know.

My main question is, what are the various colon delimited values for? Some example lines:

/etc/passwd:
ftp:x:110:110::/home/ftp:/bin/false

/etc/shadow:
james:$1$9hrko1LN$1Hf3j9fRoHQfv14Q26FBo.:12882:0:99999:7:::

/etc/group:
james:x:1000:

I'd appreciate any reply you could give

!

Kind regards,
James

Tuttle · 06-11-2005, 08:20 AM

man passwd, man group!
Basically , when you set up a new user it asks a load of questions, these are the fields for the answers. "group" holds groups and members of groups and "shadow" contains the passwords (encrypted).
You are best off just using the commands "passwd", "adduser", "useradd", "groupadd", "groupdel" and "groupmod" than trying to work out how to modify these files, you can corrupt them easily (as I have found out to my detriment!).

kornerr · 06-11-2005, 09:57 AM

http://slackbook.lizella.net/html/es...hardusers.html

Read Slackware Essentials, new ver !
All what you wanna know about manual configuration.

nutnut · 06-11-2005, 01:53 PM

Hi,

Thanks for the quick reply guys - this stuff should come in useful

!

Kind regards,
James

Tuttle · 06-11-2005, 07:47 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by kornerr
http://slackbook.lizella.net/html/es...hardusers.html

Read Slackware Essentials, new ver !
All what you wanna know about manual configuration.

I didn't know about those vi commands, thanks alot!