MAN page from RedHat 6.X shadow-utils-980403-12.i386.rpm
PWCK
Section: User Commands (1)
Index NAME
pwck - verify integrity of password files
SYNOPSIS
pwck [
-r] [
passwd shadow]
DESCRIPTION
pwck verifies the integrity of the system authentication information.All entries in the
/etc/passwd and
/etc/shadow are checked tosee that the entry has the proper format and valid data in each field.The user is prompted to delete entries that are improperly formatted orwhich have other incorrectable errors.Checks are made to verify that each entry has
- the correct number of fields
- a unique user name
- a valid user and group identifier
- a valid primary group
- a valid home directory
- a valid login shell
The checks for correct number of fields and unique user name are fatal.If the entry has the wrong number of fields, the user will be prompted todelete the entire line.If the user does not answer affirmatively, all further checks are bypassed.An entry with a duplicated user name is prompted for deletion, but theremaining checks will still be made.All other errors are warning and the user is encouraged to run theusermod command to correct the error.The commands which operate on the /etc/passwd file are not able toalter corrupted or duplicated entries.pwck should be used in those circumstances to remove the offendingentry.
OPTIONS
By default,
pwck operates on the files
/etc/passwd and
/etc/shadow.The user may select alternate files with the
passwd and
shadowparameters.Additionally, the user may execute the command in read-only mode byspecifying the
-r flag.This causes all questions regarding changes to be answered
nowithout user intervention.
FILES
/etc/passwd - user account information
/etc/shadow - encrypted password information
/etc/group - group information
SEE ALSO
usermod(8),
group(5),
passwd(5),
shadow(5)
DIAGNOSTICS
The
pwck command exits with the following values:
- 0
- Success
- 1
- Syntax Error
- 2
- One or more bad password entries
- 3
- Cannot open password files
- 4
- Cannot lock password files
- 5
- Cannot update password files
AUTHOR
Julianne Frances Haugh (jfhAATTtab.com)
Index
- NAME
- SYNOPSIS
- DESCRIPTION
- OPTIONS
- FILES
- SEE ALSO
- DIAGNOSTICS
- AUTHOR
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