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I'm a beginner in AIX and I have 2 questions on AIX's passwd file.

  1. If there is a hash (#) symbol in front of a username, what does this mean?
  2. Correct me if I'm wrong. On the password field, if a user has password, it will be marked with an asterisk symbol (*). If a user does not have a password, it is marked with an exclamation mark (!) and that the account is locked / blocked.

Thanks

John Doe
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  • have you read the manpage? Or [IBM's most excellent documentation (check out the "files reference" section, or search)](http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/aix/v6r1/index.jsp)? The answer to at least one of your questions is in the documentation - The other may be as well... – voretaq7 Jul 10 '12 at 03:37

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  1. The hash in front of a username means that the user effectively does not exist. This is a TERRIBLE way to remove a user though. If you want to remove user, make sure you use rmuser. If you want to lock an account do chuser account_locked=true.

  2. This is incorrect.

To see if a user has a password or not, check /etc/security/passwd. If there is no password hash underneath the users name, then they do not have a password set. To check to see if a user is locked, do lsuser <user> and look for account_locked.

awojo
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