man gshadow (Formats) - shadowed group file
NAME
gshadow - shadowed group file
DESCRIPTION
/etc/gshadow contains the shadowed information for group accounts. It contains lines with the following colon-separated fields:
- •
- group name
- •
- encrypted password
- •
- comma-separated list of group administrators
- •
- comma-separated list of group members
The group name and password fields must be filled. The encrypted password consists of characters from the 64-character alphabet a thru z, A thru Z, 0 thru 9, \. and /. Refer to crypt(3) for details on how this string is interpreted. If the password field contains some string that is not valid result of crypt(3), for instance ! or *, the user will not be able to use a unix password to log in, subject to pam(7).
This information supersedes any password present in /etc/group.
This file must not be readable by regular users if password security is to be maintained.
FILES
- /etc/group
- group account information
- /etc/gshadow
- secure group account information
SEE ALSO
AUTHOR
Nicolas FRANCOIS