Checking the Password File

Checking the Password File

At least once a week, you should run the pwck(1M) and grpck(1M) programs to check your /etc/passwd and /etc/group files for errors. You can automate this process using the cron(1) command, and you can direct cron to mail the results of the checks to your user account. For more information on using cron to automate your routine tasks, see "Automating Tasks with at(1), batch(1), and cron(1M)".

The pwck and grpck commands read the password and group files and report any incorrect or inconsistent entries. Any inconsistency with normal IRIX operation is reported. For example, if you have /etc/passwd entries for two user names with the same User Identification (UID) number, pwck will report this as an error. grpck performs a similar function on the /etc/group file. Note that the standard passwd file shipped with the system generates several errors.