36

There is os.getuid() which "Returns the current process’s user id.". But how do I find out any given user's id?

ren
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4 Answers4

41

You could use pwd.getpwnam():

In [5]: pwd.getpwnam('aix').pw_uid
Out[5]: 1004
NPE
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37

Assuming what you want is the username string associated with the userid for your program, try:

import os
import pwd
pwd.getpwuid( os.getuid() ).pw_name

Use os.geteuid() to get the effective uid instead, if that difference matters to you.

Use pw_gecos instead of pw_name to get the "real name" if that's populated on your system.

murphstein
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7

pwd:

import pwd
for p in pwd.getpwall():
    print p

pwd.struct_passwd(pw_name='_calendar', pw_passwd='*', pw_uid=93, pw_gid=93, pw_gecos='Calendar', pw_dir='/var/empty', pw_shell='/usr/bin/false')
pwd.struct_passwd(pw_name='_teamsserver', pw_passwd='*', pw_uid=94, pw_gid=94, pw_gecos='TeamsServer', pw_dir='/var/teamsserver', pw_shell='/usr/bin/false')
pwd.struct_passwd(pw_name='_update_sharing', pw_passwd='*', pw_uid=95, pw_gid=-2, pw_gecos='Update Sharing', pw_dir='/var/empty', pw_shell='/usr/bin/false')
pwd.struct_passwd(pw_name='_installer', pw_passwd='*', pw_uid=96, pw_gid=-2, pw_gecos='Installer', pw_dir='/var/empty', pw_shell='/usr/bin/false')
pwd.struct_passwd(pw_name='_atsserver', pw_passwd='*', pw_uid=97, pw_gid=97, pw_gecos='ATS Server', pw_dir='/var/empty', pw_shell='/usr/bin/false')
pwd.struct_passwd(pw_name='_ftp', pw_passwd='*', pw_uid=98, pw_gid=-2, pw_gecos='FTP Daemon', pw_dir='/var/empty', pw_shell='/usr/bin/false')
chown
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-5

You could just parse /etc/passwd, it's stored there.

vines
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    It might be stored there, or in NIS, or in LDAP, or in any other source for which there's an nsswitch module. That's why we have APIs that start with `getpw` — so that you don't have a bug because you parsed `/etc/passwd` by hand on a system that uses (say) NIS to store user information. – mkj Oct 14 '11 at 15:55
  • mkj: Thanks! Didn't know about NIS and LDAP. – vines Oct 14 '11 at 16:01