Before diving into the commands, it is helpful to understand how Linux categorizes users. Broadly speaking, there are:<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/li>\n Both system and regular users are stored in the <\/span>\/etc\/passwd<\/span> file, along with important metadata like user ID (UID), group ID (GID), home directory and login shell.<\/span><\/p>\n There are multiple ways to List Users in Linux all users in a Linux system. Here are the most common and reliable methods.<\/span><\/p>\n The primary method to list all users on a Linux system is by inspecting the <\/span>\/etc\/passwd<\/span> file.<\/span><\/p>\n cat \/etc\/passwd<\/span><\/p>\n Each line in this file represents a user, formatted as:<\/span><\/p>\n username:x:UID:GID:comment:home_directory:shell<\/span><\/p>\n Example output:<\/span><\/p>\n john:x:1001:1001:John Doe:\/home\/john:\/bin\/bash<\/span><\/p>\n To extract just the usernames from the <\/span>\/etc\/passwd<\/span> file:<\/span><\/p>\n cut -d: -f1 \/etc\/passwd<\/span><\/p>\n This will return a list of all usernames on the system including both regular and system users.<\/span><\/p>\n Another method to list users in Linux is with the <\/span>getent<\/span> command, which retrieves entries from administrative databases supported by the Name Service Switch (NSS). This is a more flexible approach especially in environments using Lightweight Directory Access Protocol or other authentication mechanisms.<\/span><\/p>\n getent passwd<\/span><\/p>\n Like <\/span>cat \/etc\/passwd<\/span>, this lists all users but through the NSS interface.To show only usernames:<\/span><\/p>\n getent passwd | cut -d: -f1<\/span><\/p>\n\n
How to List Users in Linux?<\/b><\/h2>\n
1. Viewing the <\/b>\/etc\/passwd<\/b> File<\/b><\/h3>\n
2. Using the <\/b>getent<\/b> Command<\/b><\/h3>\n