/etc/passwd file

Applications Cybersecurity
1

hi

Does anyone anyone know what the last line of a unix user passwd file signifes?

Mine shows "+:::::"

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2

Hi, I'm not sure why you would have that there.

It looks to be an incomplete entry for a user called "+" and is missing, apart from obvious things such as the uid and gid, but also the final seperator.

What OS are you using?

I would say initially take a look at the timestamp on the file and see when it changed and perhaps see who was on at that time with last.

I guess also check if anything else was changed at the same time as that passwd file, maybe something you installed or someone else.

I would also say for cleanliness purposes, take a backup of the file and remove that entry. If you notice anything breaking then investigate further as the best learning always comes from breaking things :slight_smile:

Thanks

3

actually, the "+" in the last line in /etc/passwd tells the system to reference NIS ... here are some Google search entries you might want to take a look at ... good luck!

4

hrmm interesting, I've worked with NIS before and have never seen this reference.

Thanks for the info

5

Thanks for all your input

it was for a coursework question so no big deal excpet my own curiosity.
The version our university runs is SuSE Linux 9.3.

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