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Full Discussion: user Id vs Password
Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers user Id vs Password Post 7410 by LivinFree on Wednesday 26th of September 2001 03:55:46 AM
Old 09-26-2001
Well, as is indicated by their names, UserID is what identifies you to the machine you are logging in to. The Password is a (hopefully) unique string that only the owner of that account should know. This keeps others from logging in to your account.

The Unix password file (/etc/passwd) contains the following fields for each user ->
name:passwd:uid:gid:gecos:dir:shell

* The name is the UserID.

* Password is, well, the password (This is either stored in encrypted form, so that no one can know your password just by looking at this file, or stored in a different file, called 'shadow'. If the password is stored elsewhere, there will be an 'x' in the password field).

* The UID is your UserID - a number unique to your system that identifies you to the computer ( sort of like a hostname like slashdot.org is another name for the IP address 64.28.67.150 ).

* The GID is a GroupID - you can belong to different groups to identify you further.

* GECOS is leftover from the old (you guessed it) GECOS operating system - this give even friendlier information, depending on how it is set up, like your full name, department, office number, phone number, so on...

* The DIR is your home directory - when you log in, this is where you will be, and most likely where you store all of your files.

* The shell field tells the computer what "shell" to use, like ksh, sh, bash, csh, and so on... The shell is what you type into - it "translates" to make the commands you type run. It talks (pretty much) directly to the core of the Operating System.

Anyhow, this now concludes the short passwd tutorial. Hope that helped!
 

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POSIX_GETPWUID(3)							 1							 POSIX_GETPWUID(3)

posix_getpwuid - Return info about a user by user id

SYNOPSIS
array posix_getpwuid (int $uid) DESCRIPTION
Returns an array of information about the user referenced by the given user ID. PARAMETERS
o $uid - The user identifier. RETURN VALUES
Returns an associative array with the following elements: The user information array +--------+---------------------------------------------------+ |Element | | | | | | | Description | | | | +--------+---------------------------------------------------+ | name | | | | | | | The name element contains the username of the | | | user. This is a short, usually less than 16 char- | | | acter "handle" of the user, not the real, full | | | name. | | | | |passwd | | | | | | | The passwd element contains the user's password | | | in an encrypted format. Often, for example on a | | | system employing "shadow" passwords, an asterisk | | | is returned instead. | | | | | uid | | | | | | | User ID, should be the same as the $uid parame- | | | ter used when calling the function, and hence | | | redundant. | | | | | gid | | | | | | | The group ID of the user. Use the function | | | posix_getgrgid(3) to resolve the group name and a | | | list of its members. | | | | | gecos | | | | | | | GECOS is an obsolete term that refers to the | | | finger information field on a Honeywell batch | | | processing system. The field, however, lives on, | | | and its contents have been formalized by POSIX. | | | The field contains a comma separated list con- | | | taining the user's full name, office phone, | | | office number, and home phone number. On most | | | systems, only the user's full name is available. | | | | | dir | | | | | | | This element contains the absolute path to the | | | home directory of the user. | | | | | shell | | | | | | | The shell element contains the absolute path to | | | the executable of the user's default shell. | | | | +--------+---------------------------------------------------+ EXAMPLES
Example #1 Example use of posix_getpwuid(3) <?php $userinfo = posix_getpwuid(10000); print_r($userinfo); ?> The above example will output something similar to: Array ( [name] => tom [passwd] => x [uid] => 10000 [gid] => 42 [gecos] => "tom,,," [dir] => "/home/tom" [shell] => "/bin/bash" ) SEE ALSO
posix_getpwnam(3), POSIX man page GETPWNAM(3). PHP Documentation Group POSIX_GETPWUID(3)
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