TIL linux user groups

POSTED ON: Jul 03, 2022

What is it?

/etc/passwd is a configuration file which stores user account information, like username, user ID and group ID.

rocky@mac:~$ cat /etc/passwd

root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
daemon:x:1:1:daemon:/usr/sbin:/usr/sbin/nologin
bin:x:2:2:bin:/bin:/usr/sbin/nologin
sys:x:3:3:sys:/dev:/usr/sbin/nologin
sync:x:4:65534:sync:/bin:/bin/sync
games:x:5:60:games:/usr/games:/usr/sbin/nologin
...
rocky:x:1000:1000:Rocky K,,,:/home/rocky:/bin/bash

It's broken into 7 fields.

Notice that there's a lot of special custom user accounts?

UID 0 is reserved for root user.
UID 1-99 is reserved for other predefined accounts.
UID 100-999 is reserved for system accounts.

Also notice that user accounts tend to start at 1000.

UID above 999 are for normal user accounts.

To organize permissions, you can assign permissions to the group, and assign people into that group!

via Understanding /etc/passwd file in Linux

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