users not found in /etc/passwd

Question

I login to a linux box with username user1 and my home folder is in /home. There is another user named user2 that has its home directory in /opt/data/folder.

If I want to check the list of users I inspect the file /etc/passwd in this simple way

grep user1 /etc/passwd
grep user2 /etc/passwd

I cannot find neither my user, not the other: Why is that? Is there any other file or command I should look to have a proper list of users?

score 32 · Accepted Answer · edited Oct 23 '17 at 19:15

32

That is because the users database is stored elsewhere, for example an LDAP. Use getent passwd $USER to resolve your user. Make sure you read nsswitch.conf(5) with command man nsswitch.conf to understand how and where can be users (and some other) databases stored.

edited Oct 23 '17 at 19:15

Abdull

2,432

answered Apr 09 '13 at 06:06

dawud

1,518

users not found in /etc/passwd

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