Today's article has you listing all your users.

KGIII

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It's nothing too amazing in this article. It's just listing your users, with a bit more information to go with it.


As always, feedback is pretty awesome.
 


Nice one! I have a question, following your examples, I tried the commands on my system and I noticed I have somewhere around 50 users, most of them are related to the apps that are installed on my PC.

Is that normal for Linux to create these accounts for the apps?
 
Yup. It's "normal" that some apps make their own users. How many there will be will depend heavily on the applications you install.

If you use the command on the page for counting, you should get an exact number instead of 'somewhere around'. A quick check on this box says there are 45 users.
 
Another good thing to look for is how many user account you have that actually have shells of some sort assigned to them.

For instance, to see how many accounts exist.
Code:
[user@prodnfs1 archive]$ cat /etc/passwd | awk '!/nologin/' | wc -l
8
[user@prodnfs1 archive]$ cat /etc/passwd | wc -l
35
The above (top) command with awk filtering out all the accounts that have /sbin/nologin as their assigned shell. (which prevents the user from login and obtain a shell.

This is good when looking for rogue accounts with physical logins. That said, it's good to look for all accounts as many services run without shells and someone could easily install software you aren't aware of.

While you usually do not do this on home desktop machines. In server land, many times you will have configuration management and you can use these tools to ensure (notify you) things like '/etc/passwd' remain unaltered by some would-be attacker adding unauthorized accounts.
 
Another good thing to look for is how many user account you have that actually have shells of some sort assigned to them.

That's a pretty good idea. For stuff like that, I recommend folks add it as a comment at the site. It's <code>foo</code> instead of the square brackets. ;)

Then, there's even a way for you to write articles! You can register or just use the 'contribute' option!

*nods emphatically*
 
lol, you've seen my little articles. They are full of terrible grammar, spelling mistakes and thoughts out of order. I normally have had a glass of wine before writing them.

Maybe will make my new handle, ThE DRunkeN LinUx EngiNEEr lol
 
LOL That's okay - I would have to edit and format 'em prior to scheduling for publication anyhow!

Ha! Excuse #1 shot down! ;-)

If you get good and drunk, and bored, it's there as an option. I've actually managed to keep up the every other day schedule fairly well, except when I wrote one article while sick. That one did not come out well. Since then, I've been trying to keep a round in the chamber and another one behind it. I use the automatic scheduling feature, which makes it easier and less stressful.
 

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