passwd

NAME

       passwd - password file

DESCRIPTION

       Passwd  is an ASCII file which contains a list of the sys-
       tem's users and the passwords they must  use  for  access.
       The  password  file  should have read access for everyone,
       which is ok because of the encryption,  but  write  access
       only  for the superuser.  If you create a new login, leave
       the password field empty and use passwd(2) to fill it.   A
       star  or  something like that in the password field means,
       that this user can not login via login(1).  If  your  root
       file  system is on /dev/ram, you must save a changed pass-
       word file to your root  file  system  floppy,  before  you
       shutdown  the  system and check the access rights.  If you
       want to create user groups, their GID's must be equal  and
       there  must  be  an  entry in /etc/group, or no group will
       exist.

       There is one entry per line, and each line has the format:

              login_name:passwd:UID:GID:user_name:directory:shell

       The field descriptions are:


              login_name
                        the name of the user on the system.

              password  the encrypted optional user password.

              UID       the numerical user ID.

              GID       the numerical group ID for this user.

              user_name the (optional)  comment  field  (often  a
                        full user name).

              directory the user's $HOME directory.

              shell     the  program  to  run at login (if empty,
                        use /bin/sh).

FILES

       /etc/passwd

SEE ALSO

       passwd(1), login(1), group(5)