pwd — The password database

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

Availability: Unix, not WASI, not iOS.

Password database entries are reported as a tuple-like object, whose attributes correspond to the members of the passwd structure (Attribute field below, see <pwd.h>):

Index

Attribute

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.

It defines the following items:

pwd.getpwuid(uid)

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

pwd.getpwnam(name)

Return the password database entry for the given user name.

pwd.getpwall()

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