Managing User Accounts

This chapter explains how user accounts work, how users can change their password by using the passwd utility, and how system administrators can use the passwd utility and edit account database files to create and maintain users' accounts.

Note: In embedded systems, the designer may choose to eliminate the account-related files from the system, disabling logins and references to users and groups by name, even though the system remains fully multiuser and may have multiple numeric user IDs running programs and owning system resources. If your system is configured this way, most of this chapter won't be relevant to you.