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36.2. pwd — The password database
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:
-
pwd.getpwuid(uid) Return the password database entry for the given numeric user ID.
-
pwd.getpwnam(name) Return the password database entry for the given user name.
-
pwd.getpwall() Return a list of all available password database entries, in arbitrary order.