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passwd- and shadow- files

Posted by EviL_SmUrF, 04-05-2009, 04:39 AM

I have been googling this for a while but am not getting anywhere. Curiosity has gotten the best of me, what are the passwd- and shadow- files used for? The date and time stamps for both the passwd- and passwd files are exactly the same, as are the shadow- and shadow files. Are they automatically-created backups of the passwd and shadow files? Thanks!

Posted by harimau, 04-05-2009, 06:47 AM

etc/passwd stores information like system accounts, user, user ID, group ID, home directory, shell, etc. /etc/shadow stores encrypted users password from /etc/passwd file every update on /etc/passwd file also update the /ect/shadow file

Posted by cedricd, 04-05-2009, 03:09 PM

He meant the other files, /etc/passwd- and /etc/shadow- I also think they are for backup, but not quite sure.

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