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Python Library Reference |  |
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8.2 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 7-tuples containing the
following items from the password database (see <pwd.h>), in order:
| Index | Field | 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:
- getpwuid(uid)
- Return the password database entry for the given numeric user ID.
- getpwnam(name)
- Return the password database entry for the given user name.
- getpwall()
- Return a list of all available password database entries, in arbitrary order.
See Also:
- Module grp:
- An interface to the group database, similar to this.
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Python Library Reference | |
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Release 2.2, documentation updated on December 21, 2001.