shadow(F)

Format

Description

The shadow file contains the following information for each user:

username

The user's login name (ID).

password

The encrypted password for the user, prefixed with the string ``LK'' when the account is locked, the string ``RETIRED'' when the account has been retired, or no string when the account does not have a password.

lastchanged

The number of days between January 1, 1970, and the date that the password was last modified.

minimum

The minimum number of days required between password changes.

maximum

The maximum number of days for which the password is valid.

The encrypted password consists of characters chosen from a 64-character alphabet ( ., /, 0-9, A-Z, a-z ). An encrypted password may be up to 112 characters long, the length being controlled by the length of cleartext password field on the Accounts selection of the Account manager. Every 8 characters of cleartext uses 11 characters of encrypted text. Encrypted passwords are always prefixed by a 2-character salt. The minimum length of an encrypted password is 13 characters.

Files

/etc/passwd

full pathname of passwd

/tcb/files/auth/[a-z]/?

protected password authentication database files

See also