Which of the following getent invocations lists all existing users?

Question

Options

• Agetent homes
• Bgetent uids
• Cgetent passwd
• Dgetent users
• Egetent logins

• A
  4% (1)
• B
  8% (2)
• C
  73% (19)
• D
  15% (4)

Explanation

getent passwd queries the passwd database, which is the standard Unix/Linux database containing all user account entries - each line includes username, UID, GID, home directory, and shell. This is the authoritative way to list all users because it respects NSS (Name Service Switch), pulling from /etc/passwd and any configured sources like LDAP or NIS.

The distractors fail because getent only accepts valid NSS database names: homes, uids, users, and logins are not valid databases recognized by getent, so those invocations would return an error or empty output. The valid databases include passwd, group, hosts, services, shadow, and a handful of others - nothing resembling the made-up names in A, B, D, and E.

Memory tip: Think "passwd = people." Just as /etc/passwd has always stored user accounts (historically with passwords, now just metadata), getent passwd is the NSS-aware equivalent - same name, same data, broader sources.

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