Editing Getent (section)

{{lowercase|getent}}
{{short description|Unix command}}
'''getent''' is a [[Unix]] command that helps a user get entries in a number of important [[text files]] called databases. This includes the passwd and group databases which store user information – hence {{code|getent}} is a common way to look up user details on Unix. Since {{code|getent}} uses the same name service as the system, {{code|getent}} will show all information, including that gained from network information sources such as [[Lightweight Directory Access Protocol|LDAP]].

The databases it searches in are: ahosts, ahostsv4, ahostsv6, aliases, ethers (Ethernet addresses), group, gshadow, hosts, netgroup, networks, [[passwd (file)|passwd]], protocols, rpc, services, and shadow.

The general syntax is:
<syntaxhighlight lang="shell">
getent database [key ...]
</syntaxhighlight>

[[Thorsten Kukuk]] wrote the ''getent'' utility for the [[GNU C Library]].