Reply With Quotewell the /etc/passwd file is the file where the user information is stored,when a new user is created information regarding the user like username,user ID , group ID,location of home directory,login shell etc is stored in the passwd file.
WHere as in /etc/shadow file information like encrypted form of password of a user,the day the password expires,whether or not the passwd has to be changed,minimum and maximum time between password changes and so on are stored.
basically speaking the passwd file stores general user info and shadow file stores user passwd info
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