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What is the best way to find out the user that a python process is running under?

I could do this:

name = os.popen('whoami').read()

But that has to start a whole new process.

os.environ["USER"]

works sometimes, but sometimes that environment variable isn't set.

Will Daniels
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Josh Gibson
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2 Answers2

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import getpass
print(getpass.getuser())

See the documentation of the getpass module.

getpass.getuser()

Return the “login name” of the user. Availability: Unix, Windows.

This function checks the environment variables LOGNAME, USER, LNAME and USERNAME, in order, and returns the value of the first one which is set to a non-empty string. If none are set, the login name from the password database is returned on systems which support the pwd module, otherwise, an exception is raised.

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Ayman Hourieh
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This should work under Unix.

import os
print(os.getuid()) # numeric uid
import pwd
print(pwd.getpwuid(os.getuid())) # full /etc/passwd info
WattsInABox
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  • This solution only works on Unix see http://docs.python.org/library/pwd.html?highlight=pwd – Nadia Alramli May 13 '09 at 20:15
  • Works on my linux box, i had the same answer as this one but will delete it as i was 2 minutes later ;-) – ChristopheD May 13 '09 at 20:16
  • getpass.getuser() uses this approach as a fallback if it cannot find the username in the environment variables. – Ayman Hourieh May 13 '09 at 20:26
  • @Ayman: I find it better to rely on os.getuid than environment variables to figure out who I am. Environment variables are untrustworthy, especially if security matters. –  May 14 '09 at 04:51
  • @Nadia: Aye, it probably doesn't work on Windows, but the question is tagged posix, and os.getuid and pwd.getpwuid are both part of Posix. –  May 14 '09 at 04:53
  • @NadiaAlramli he knows. he said so in the answer. – Cinder Jan 19 '13 at 10:53