16.2 pwd -- The password database
Availability: Unix.
This module provides access to the Unix user account and password database. It is available on all Unix versions.
Password database entries are reported as a tuple-like object, whose
attributes correspond to the members of the passwd structure
(Attribute field below, see <pwd.h>):
| Index | Attribute | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | pw_name |
Login name |
| 1 | pw_passwd |
Optional encrypted password |
| 2 | pw_uid |
Numerical user ID |
| 3 | pw_gid |
Numerical group ID |
| 4 | pw_gecos |
User name or comment field |
| 5 | pw_dir |
User home directory |
| 6 | pw_shell |
User command interpreter |
The uid and gid items are integers, all others are strings. KeyError is raised if the entry asked for cannot be found.
Note:
In traditional Unix the field pw_passwd usually
contains a password encrypted with a DES derived algorithm (see module
crypt). However most modern unices
use a so-called shadow password system. On those unices the
pw_passwd field only contains an asterisk ('*') or the
letter "x" where the encrypted password is stored in a file
/etc/shadow which is not world readable. Whether the pw_passwd
field contains anything useful is system-dependent. If available, the
spwd module should be used where access to the encrypted password
is required.
It defines the following items:
- Return the password database entry for the given numeric user ID.
- Return the password database entry for the given user name.
- Return a list of all available password database entries, in arbitrary order.
See Also:
- An interface to the group database, similar to this.
- An interface to the shadow password database, similar to this.
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Release 2.5, documentation updated on 19th September, 2006.