The passwd file contains basic information about each
user's account. It contains a one-line entry for each
authorized user, of the form:
username:password:uid:gid:gcos_field:home_directory:login_shellRequiredFields:
username
The user's login name, not more than eight
characters.
password
The user's password, in an encrypted form
that is generated by the UNIX passwd function.
However, if the encypted password is
stored in /etc/shadow, (see shadow(5)), the
password field of /etc/passwd is empty.
uid
A unique interger assigned by the UNIX administrator
to represent the user's account;
its value is usually between 0 and
32767.
gid
An interger representing the group to which
the user has been assigned. Groups are created
by the UNIX system administrator; each
is assigned a unique integer whose value is
generally between 0 and 32767.
gcos-field
The user's real name. The name may be of
any length; it may include capital letters
as well as lower case, and may include
blanks. The name may be empty.
home_directory The user's home directory. The home directory
field may be empty.
login-shell
The default shell launched at login. This
field may be empty.