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
field pw_passwd only contains a asterisk ('*') or the
letter "x" where the encrypted password is stored in a file
/etc/shadow which is not world readable.
It defines the following items:
| uid) |
| name) |
| ) |
See Also: