UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi,

I am relatively new to Unix and trying to understand as much as I can.
I would like to know if it's possible to count the total number of Unix accounts? If so, can the count be done from any working directory or does it have to be specific to where the accounts are based?

Thanks!

The /etc/passwd file keeps track of the accounts. One line per account. the wc -l command counts lines in a file.

Code:

wc -l /etc/passwd

but /etc/passwd also contains system account details. in linux user account id starts from 500 onwards. You can grep/search for account from 500 onwards.

- nilesh

use this script to know the users that have user ID's between 500 and 1000 . If you think there are more number of users, you can increase the number.

#!/bin/bash

count=0;

OIFS=$IFS;
IFS=:


while read line
do
res=`echo $line | awk '{print $3}'`;
if [ $res -ge 500 ] && [ $res -lt 1000 ]
then
count=`expr $count + 1 `
fi
done < /etc/passwd
echo $count

IFS=$OIFS

exit 0

Or a short version of the above code:

Code:

awk -F: '{if ($3 >= 1000) x++} END {print x}' /etc/passwd