Python Library Reference

Previous: 8.1.2 Module Contents Up: 8. Unix Specific Services Next: 8.3 grp

---

8.2 pwd -- The password database

Availability: Unix.

This module provides access to the Unix user account and password database. It is available on all Unix versions.

Password database entries are reported as 7-tuples containing the following items from the password database (see <pwd.h>), in order:

Index	Field	Meaning
0	pw_name	Login name
1	pw_passwd	Optional encrypted password
2	pw_uid	Numerical user ID
3	pw_gid	Numerical group ID
4	pw_gecos	User name or comment field
5	pw_dir	User home directory
6	pw_shell	User command interpreter

The uid and gid items are integers, all others are strings. KeyError is raised if the entry asked for cannot be found.

Note: In traditional Unix the field pw_passwd usually contains a password encrypted with a DES derived algorithm (see module crypt ). However most modern unices use a so-called shadow password system. On those unices the field pw_passwd only contains a asterisk ('*') or the letter "x" where the encrypted password is stored in a file /etc/shadow which is not world readable.

It defines the following items:

getpwuid(uid)

Return the password database entry for the given numeric user ID.

getpwnam(name)

Return the password database entry for the given user name.

getpwall()

Return a list of all available password database entries, in arbitrary order.

---

Python Library Reference

Previous: 8.1.2 Module Contents Up: 8. Unix Specific Services Next: 8.3 grp

---

Release 2.1.3, documentation updated on April 8, 2002.