"nobody user"

[f. halili]

What is the "nobody" user for.

I did a pwck on one server and gave me:

# pwck

nobody:*:-2:-24::/:
Invalid GID
The entry on the /etc/passwd for this user is
"nobody:*:-2:-24::/:"

On another system pwck was clean and the enty on the /etc/passwd is "nobody:*:-2:60001::/:"

Any thoughts??

Thanks,
f. halili

[A. Clay Stephenson · Accepted solution]

The -2 user which is also sometimes 65534 (which is the same value an -2 represented as a signed 16-nit integer) is the anonymous user for NFS. It is a normal entry.

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi:

The 'nobody' user is used by NFS for root access. See the manpages for 'passwd(4)'.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Arunvijai_4]

Hello,

It is normail behaviour of HP-UX and user nobody. It has uid of -2 in HP-UX. You can check this information at,

http://www.unixguide.net/unixguide.shtml

Look for nobody.

-Arun

[Geoff Wild]

By default, nobody should be -2 -2:

grep nobody /etc/passwd
nobody:*:-2:-2::/:


Rgds...Geoff

[f. halili]

thanks!