Default system account on HP-UX 11i V1.

[Narendra Uttekar]

Hi,
I want to know what all are the default system account on HP-UX 11i V1 i.e. the list of the account below from the system please let me know what all the account each represent.

root:x:0:3::/:/sbin/sh
daemon:x:1:5::/:/sbin/sh
bin:x:2:2::/usr/bin:/sbin/sh
sys:x:3:3::/:
adm:x:4:4::/var/adm:/sbin/sh
uucp:x:5:3::/var/spool/uucppublic:/usr/lbin/uucp/uucico
lp:x:9:7::/var/spool/lp:/sbin/sh
nuucp:x:11:11::/var/spool/uucppublic:/usr/lbin/uucp/uucico
hpdb:x:27:1:ALLBASE:/:/sbin/sh
nobody:x:-2:-2::/:
www:x:30:1::/:
webadmin:x:40:1::/usr/obam/server/nologindir:/usr/bin/false
smbnull:x:101:108:DO NOT USE OR DELETE - needed by Samba:/home/smbnull:/sbin/sh
mysql:x:123:109::/home/mysql:/sbin/sh
iwww:x:124:1::/home/iwww:/sbin/sh
owww:x:125:1::/home/owww:/sbin/sh
hpsmh:x:79:79:System Management Homepage:/home/hpsmh:/sbin/sh
tftp:*:510:1:Trivial FTP user:/usr/tftpdir:false
sshd:*:104:104:sshd privsep:/var/empty:/bin/false

Thanks,
Narendra

[Matti_Kurkela · Accepted solution]

Unless otherwise noted, these accounts are locked by default, and should remain so.

root - The main administrator account. Obviously, this account should always have a good password and it should not be locked.

(NOTE: root's shell *must* be /sbin/sh, or else the system will be unbootable.)


daemon - Mainly for legacy compatibility, but used at least by grmd (which is a helper daemon for HP-UX X server: you may see it if you run a local X server on your system.)


bin - The standard owner of all HP-UX system binaries and libraries. Do not remove this: if you do, you will see lots of error messages from swinstall when installing patches and other HP software depots.


sys - Exists for legacy compatibility, I guess?


adm - The owner of /var/adm directory, the /var/adm/wtmp* files and the accounting files in /var/adm/acct/.


uucp and nuucp - Related to UUCP subsystem: a system for transferring mail and files over modem lines and other serial connections. If UUCP is not used at your site, these accounts should be locked, as they are by default. Removing these accounts is not advisable, as some system files are owned by these user accounts; you might have difficulties installing a Quality Pack if these accounts don't exist on your system.


lp - The account of the printing subsystem, so that the print spooler does not have to run as root.


hpdb - A system account on all HP-UX systems for historical reasons: it is/was used by the ALLBASE/HP-UX product. See ITRC Knowledge Base document emr_na-c00931789-3 for more information.
If you don't have ALLBASE/HP-UX on your system, this account should remain locked as it is by default.


nobody - This user is traditionally used in many cases when an application must run as an account that is guaranteed to not own any files and directories (i.e. to make sure it can only write to world-writeable locations like /tmp and /var/tmp). On new applications, it's recommended to create an application-specific user account for this purpose instead.

"nobody" is also used by the NFS subsystem: if a NFS client accesses a NFS filesystem using an UID that does not exist on the NFS server, the access is treated as if it was made by the "anonymous" UID... which is "nobody" by default. (The UID 0 on the NFS client is also translated to the anonymous UID on the NFS server to prevent an intruder from getting root access on the NFS server if s/he already has root on a NFS client.)

The "nobody" account *must* always remain locked, no exceptions. It should not be removed.


www - Used by HP Apache web server, if it's installed.


webadmin - Used by the Webmin GUI that comes with the HP Apache Web Server (optional component).


smbnull - Used by Samba (or HP CIFS Server) software. It is important that this account *not* own any files or directories: this is like "nobody" but specifically for Samba.


mysql - Used by the MySQL database engine.


iwww and owww - Probably these exist to be compatible with HP-UX 11.04 VirtualVault product?


hpsmh - Used by HP System Management Homepage, an unified Windows/Linux/HP-UX/... web administration tool for HP hardware.


tftp - When a HP-UX system runs a TFTP server (for example, if it's acting as a Ignite-UX server or a Ignite boot helper), the TFTP clients will be allowed to access the system as user "tftp" (the TFTP protocol does not have usernames or authentication).


sshd - This is used by the Privilege Separation feature of sshd (see SSH documentation for more details). It is very important that the home directory of this user (/var/empty) is actually empty and *not* owned by the sshd user.


See also:
http://h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/System-Administration/HP-default-users-bin-sys-adm-etc-in-etc-passwd/m-p/4102331#M312056

MK

[點燃]

Excellent answer MK! keep going!

narendra, hope you have the answer now.

todo lo mejor

[Narendra Uttekar]

Hi Matti, Thanks for the excellent answer.