GETPWNAM(3) Linux Programmer's Manual GETPWNAM(3)NAME
getpwnam, getpwnam_r, getpwuid, getpwuid_r - get password file entry
SYNOPSIS
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <pwd.h>
struct passwd *getpwnam(const char *name);
struct passwd *getpwuid(uid_t uid);
int getpwnam_r(const char *name, struct passwd *pwd,
char *buf, size_t buflen, struct passwd **result);
int getpwuid_r(uid_t uid, struct passwd *pwd,
char *buf, size_t buflen, struct passwd **result);
Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):
getpwnam_r(), getpwuid_r(): _POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 1 || _XOPEN_SOURCE ||
_BSD_SOURCE || _SVID_SOURCE || _POSIX_SOURCE
DESCRIPTION
The getpwnam() function returns a pointer to a structure containing the
broken-out fields of the record in the password database (e.g., the
local password file /etc/passwd, NIS, and LDAP) that matches the user‐
name name.
The getpwuid() function returns a pointer to a structure containing the
broken-out fields of the record in the password database that matches
the user ID uid.
The getpwnam_r() and getpwuid_r() functions obtain the same informa‐
tion, but store the retrieved passwd structure in the space pointed to
by pwd. This passwd structure contains pointers to strings, and these
strings are stored in the buffer buf of size buflen. A pointer to the
result (in case of success) or NULL (in case no entry was found or an
error occurred) is stored in *result.
The passwd structure is defined in <pwd.h> as follows:
struct passwd {
char *pw_name; /* username */
char *pw_passwd; /* user password */
uid_t pw_uid; /* user ID */
gid_t pw_gid; /* group ID */
char *pw_gecos; /* real name */
char *pw_dir; /* home directory */
char *pw_shell; /* shell program */
};
The maximum needed size for buf can be found using sysconf(3) with the
argument _SC_GETPW_R_SIZE_MAX.
RETURN VALUE
The getpwnam() and getpwuid() functions return a pointer to a passwd
structure, or NULL if the matching entry is not found or an error
occurs. If an error occurs, errno is set appropriately. If one wants
to check errno after the call, it should be set to zero before the
call.
The return value may point to static area, and may be overwritten by
subsequent calls to getpwent(3), getpwnam(), or getpwuid().
On success, getpwnam_r() and getpwuid_r() return zero, and set *result
to pwd. If no matching password record was found, these functions
return 0 and store NULL in *result. In case of error, an error number
is returned, and NULL is stored in *result.
ERRORS
0 or ENOENT or ESRCH or EBADF or EPERM or ...
The given name or uid was not found.
EINTR A signal was caught.
EIO I/O error.
EMFILE The maximum number (OPEN_MAX) of files was open already in the
calling process.
ENFILE The maximum number of files was open already in the system.
ENOMEM Insufficient memory to allocate passwd structure.
ERANGE Insufficient buffer space supplied.
FILES
/etc/passwd
local password database file
CONFORMING TO
SVr4, 4.3BSD, POSIX.1-2001.
NOTES
The formulation given above under "RETURN VALUE" is from POSIX.1-2001.
It does not call "not found" an error, and hence does not specify what
value errno might have in this situation. But that makes it impossible
to recognize errors. One might argue that according to POSIX errno
should be left unchanged if an entry is not found. Experiments on var‐
ious Unix-like systems show that lots of different values occur in this
situation: 0, ENOENT, EBADF, ESRCH, EWOULDBLOCK, EPERM and probably
others.
The pw_dir field contains the name of the initial working directory of
the user. Login programs use the value of this field to initialize the
HOME environment variable for the login shell. An application that
wants to determine its user's home directory should inspect the value
of HOME (rather than the value getpwuid(getuid())->pw_dir) since this
allows the user to modify their notion of "the home directory" during a
login session. To determine the (initial) home directory of another
user, it is necessary to use getpwnam("username")->pw_dir or similar.
EXAMPLE
The program below demonstrates the use of getpwnam_r() to find the full
username and user ID for the username supplied as a command-line argu‐
ment.
#include <pwd.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <errno.h>
int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
struct passwd pwd;
struct passwd *result;
char *buf;
size_t bufsize;
int s;
if (argc != 2) {
fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s username\n", argv[0]);
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
bufsize = sysconf(_SC_GETPW_R_SIZE_MAX);
if (bufsize == -1) /* Value was indeterminate */
bufsize = 16384; /* Should be more than enough */
buf = malloc(bufsize);
if (buf == NULL) {
perror("malloc");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
s = getpwnam_r(argv[1], &pwd, buf, bufsize, &result);
if (result == NULL) {
if (s == 0)
printf("Not found\n");
else {
errno = s;
perror("getpwnam_r");
}
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
printf("Name: %s; UID: %ld0, pwd.pw_gecos, (long) pwd.pw_uid);
exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}
SEE ALSOendpwent(3), fgetpwent(3), getgrnam(3), getpw(3), getpwent(3), putp‐
went(3), setpwent(3), passwd(5)COLOPHON
This page is part of release 3.15 of the Linux man-pages project. A
description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can
be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
GNU 2008-11-07 GETPWNAM(3)
