I login to a linux box with username user1
and my home folder is in /home
. There is another user named user2
that has its home directory in /opt/data/folder
.
If I want to check the list of users I inspect the file /etc/passwd in this simple way
grep user1 /etc/passwd
grep user2 /etc/passwd
I cannot find neither my user, not the other: Why is that?
Is there any other file or command I should look to have a proper list of users?
Best Answer
That is because the users database is stored elsewhere, for example an LDAP. Use
getent passwd $USER
to resolve your user. Make sure you readnsswitch.conf(5)
with commandman nsswitch.conf
to understand how and where can be users (and some other) databases stored.