< Previous | Contents | Next >
5.2. Managing Unix Users and Unix Groups
The database of Unix users and groups consists of the textual files /etc/passwd (list of users),
/etc/shadow (encrypted passwords of users), /etc/group (list of groups), and /etc/gshadow (encrypted passwords of groups). Their formats are documented in passwd(5), shadow(5), group(5), and gshadow(5) respectively. While these files can be manually edited with tools like vipw and vigr, there are higher level tools to perform the most common operations.