The
getent program retrieves and displays entries from the administrative database specified by
database, using the lookup order specified in
nsswitch.conf(5). The display format for a given
database is as per the “traditional” file format for that database.
database may be one of:
group
group:passwd:gid:[member[,member]...]
hosts
address name [alias ...]
netgroup
(host,user,domain) [...]
networks
name network [alias ...]
passwd
user:passwd:uid:gid:gecos:home_dir:shell
protocols
name protocol [alias ...]
rpc
name number [alias ...]
services
name port/protocol [alias ...]
If one or more
key arguments are provided, they will be looked up in
database using the appropriate function. For example,
passwd supports a numeric UID or user name;
hosts supports an IPv4 address, IPv6 address, or host name; and
services supports a service name, service name/protocol name, numeric port, or numeric port/protocol name.
If no
key is provided and
database supports enumeration, all entries for
database will be retrieved using the appropriate enumeration function and printed.
For
cgetcap(3) style databases (
disktab,
printcap) specifying a key, lists the entry for that key, and specifying more arguments after the key are used as fields in that key, and only the values of the keys are returned. For boolean keys
true is returned if the key is found. If a key is not found, then
false is always returned.