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getent

Section: System Administration Commands (1M)
Updated: 26 Mar 2007
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NAME

getent - get entries from administrative database

SYNOPSIS

getent database [key]...

DESCRIPTION

getent gets a list of entries from the administrative database specified by database. The information generally comes from one or more of the sources that are specified for the database in /etc/nsswitch.conf.

database is the name of the database to be examined. This can be passwd, group, hosts, ipnodes, services, protocols, ethers, project, networks, or netmasks. For each of these databases, getent uses the appropriate library routines described in getpwnam(3C), getgrnam(3C), gethostbyaddr(3NSL), gethostbyname(3NSL), getipnodebyaddr(3SOCKET), getipnodebyname(3SOCKET), getservbyname(3SOCKET), getprotobyname(3SOCKET), ethers(3SOCKET), getprojbyname(3PROJECT) and getnetbyname(3SOCKET), respectively.

Each key must be in a format appropriate for searching on the respective database. For example, it can be a username or numeric-uid for passwd; hostname or IP address for hosts; or service, service/protocol, port, or port/proto for services.

getent prints out the database entries that match each of the supplied keys, one per line, in the format of the matching administrative file: passwd(4), group(4), project(4), hosts(4), services(4), protocols(4), ethers(3SOCKET), networks(4), or netmasks(4). If no key is given, all entries returned by the corresponding enumeration library routine, for example, getpwent() or gethostent(), are printed. Enumeration is not supported on ipnodes.

Key Interpretation for passwd and group Databases

When getent is invoked with database set to passwd, each key value is processed as follows:

: o If the key value consists only of numeric characters, getent assumes that the key value is a numeric user ID and searches the user database for a matching user ID.

: o If the user ID is not found in the user database or if the key value contains any non-numeric characters, getent assumes the key value is a user name and searches the user database for a matching user name.

Similarly, when getent is invoked with database set to group, each key value is processed as follows:

: o If the key value consists only of numeric characters, getent assumes that the key value is a numeric group ID and searches the group database for a matching group ID.

: o If the group ID is not found in the group database or if the key value contains any non-numeric characters, getent assumes the key value is a group name and searches the group database for a matching group name.