seeking "ancient knowledge"

SaintDanBert · 06-01-2011, 11:19 AM

If you read /etc/passwd you find all sorts of entries with important sounding names: (Before I get flamed about publishing this list, I chopped it up from a live-DVD copy of the contents.)

Code:

root:x:0:0:root
daemon:x:1:1:daemon
bin:x:2:2:bin
sys:x:3:3:sys
sync:x:4:65534:sync
games:x:5:60:games
man:x:6:12:man
lp:x:7:7:lp
mail:x:8:8:mail
news:x:9:9:news
uucp:x:10:10:uucp
proxy:x:13:13:proxy
www-data:x:33:33:www-data
backup:x:34:34:backup
list:x:38:38:Mailing List Manager
irc:x:39:39:ircd
gnats:x:41:41:Gnats Bug-Reporting System (admin)
nobody:x:65534:65534:nobody
libuuid:x:100:101::
syslog:x:101:103::
messagebus:x:102:107::
avahi-autoipd:x:103:110:Avahi autoip daemon,,,
avahi:x:104:111:Avahi mDNS daemon,,,
couchdb:x:105:113:CouchDB Administrator,,,
speech-dispatcher:x:106:29:Speech Dispatcher,,,
usbmux:x:107:46:usbmux daemon,,,
haldaemon:x:108:114:Hardware abstraction layer,,,
kernoops:x:109:65534:Kernel Oops Tracking Daemon,,,
pulse:x:110:115:PulseAudio daemon,,,
rtkit:x:111:117:RealtimeKit,,,
saned:x:112:118::
hplip:x:113:7:HPLIP system user,,,
gdm:x:114:120:Gnome Display Manager
saint:x:1000:1000:Dan Saint-Andre,,,
mysql:x:115:123:MySQL Server,,,
Debian-exim:x:116:124::
festival:x:117:29::
ntop:x:118:125::
polkituser:x:119:127:PolicyKit,,,:
dnsmasq:x:120:65534:dnsmasq,,,:

I can guess what some are (or were) used for. I desparately curious
about the rest.

Can anyone direct me to "ancient scrolls" somewhere online that might give me insight into these historical details? If there are
any online docs for ancient *nix, I'd love to find and read any of that.

Thanks,
~~~ 0;-Dan

colucix · 06-01-2011, 11:26 AM

An almost complete list from a young piece of documentation: http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Re...oups-group-use

lazerking9 · 06-01-2011, 11:56 AM

To complement what colucix posted, here's a site that helps ex-plain the rest of the /etc/passwd file, written for Linux in general..
http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/underst...d-file-format/