In which of the following files does the Linux operating system store passwords?

'Password' is not a recognized Linux system file - no such file path exists in the standard Linux filesystem hierarchy for credential storage.

/etc/passwd stores user account information such as username, UID, GID, home directory, and shell, but on modern systems it contains only an 'x' placeholder in the password field, not actual hashed passwords.

The /etc/shadow file stores the hashed passwords for all user accounts on a Linux system, along with password aging and expiration metadata. It replaced the practice of storing hashed passwords in /etc/passwd because shadow is restricted to root access only, preventing unprivileged users from obtaining password hashes for offline cracking. This separation of account information from credential storage is a foundational Linux security control.

SAM (Security Account Manager) is a Windows registry database file used by Windows operating systems to store password hashes, and it has no equivalent role in Linux.