The getent group
command is showing /etc/group
, possibly augmented with other sources of information (such as winbind
), and shows data in the same format as /etc/group
.
According to the manual, the second field is the encrypted password for using the given group. Some values are special:
!
indicates that the group password would be found in the shadow file /etc/gshadow
(not user-readable as /etc/group
is). See the Shadow Password How-To for discussion.
x
can have the same meaning — shadow password (see Debian manual, and this page which includes a discussion of Solaris).
*
may be used as a placeholder if no password was specified (see FreeBSD manual page for group
), as an alternative to leaving the field blank (see Linux manual page).
According to In /etc/group what is the meaning of the second field?, the distinction between these characters is arbitrary: they were chosen to
- be visible
- not be mistaken for a valid encrypted password