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The current Linux manual pages for su define it as "substitute user", [9] making the correct meaning of sudo "substitute user, do", because sudo can run a command as other users as well. [10] [11] Unlike the similar command su, users must, by default, supply their own password for
getent is a Unix command that helps a user get entries in a number of important text files called databases. This includes the passwd and group databases which store user information – hence getent is a common way to look up user details on Unix.
Regardless of whether password shadowing is in effect on a given system, the passwd file is readable by all users so that various system utilities (e.g., grep) can work (e.g., to ensure that user names existing on the system can be found inside the file), while only the root user can write to it. Without password shadowing, this means that an ...
The gecos field, or GECOS field, is a field in each record in the /etc/passwd file on Unix and similar operating systems.On UNIX, it is the 5th of 7 fields in a record. It is typically used to record general information about the account or its user(s) such as their real name and phone number.
The password file maps textual user names to UIDs. UIDs are stored in the inodes of the Unix file system , running processes, tar archives, and the now-obsolete Network Information Service. In POSIX -compliant environments, the shell command id gives the current user's UID, as well as more information such as the user name, primary user group ...
On a Linux system, the boot partition (/boot) may be encrypted if the bootloader itself supports LUKS (e.g. GRUB). This is undertaken to prevent tampering with the Linux kernel . However, the first stage bootloader or an EFI system partition cannot be encrypted (see Full disk encryption#The boot key problem ).
In Unix systems, every user must be a member of at least one group, the primary group, which is identified by the numeric GID of the user's entry in the passwd database, which can be viewed with the command getent passwd (usually stored in /etc/passwd or LDAP). This group is referred to as the primary group ID.
A home directory is a file system directory on a multi-user operating system containing files for a given user of the system. The specifics of the home directory (such as its name and location) are defined by the operating system involved; for example, Linux / BSD systems use /home/ username or /usr/home/ username and Windows systems since Windows Vista use \Users\ username .