USERS(7) | Miscellaneous Information Manual | USERS(7)

# NAME

`users` — standard user account names

# DESCRIPTION

A standard NetBSD installation has the following user account names:

root
  The super-user, uid 0, with the highest administrative privileges. Normally not used for login directly, only via su(1) or equivalent by users in the wheel group; see groups(7).

  Secondary groups: guest, kmem, nvmm, operator, staff, sys, tty.

toor
  Like root, this is the super-user with uid 0, but with no secondary group memberships.

  Historically, root had a login shell of /bin/csh while toor had a login shell of /bin/sh. However, today both default to /bin/sh. This user account name is not used for anything in NetBSD; it is purely a convenience for actual users.

daemon
  Historic user for general daemonic activity.

  Owner of /var/msgs; see msgs(1). Used only by rpcbind(8), with the `-s` flag.

operator
  User in the operator group authorized to take snapshots of file systems, read disk devices, read and write tapes, and shut down the machine; see groups(7) for details.

  Not used directly in NetBSD but available for unprivileged backup setups.

bin
  Historic user. Unused in modern NetBSD.
games
  Owner of high-score files and other shared files for games.
postfix
  Pseudo-user for use by the postfix(1) mail transfer agent.
named
  Pseudo-user for use by the named(8) DNS nameserver daemon.
ntpd
  Pseudo-user for use by the ntpd(8) network time protocol daemon.
sshd
  Pseudo-user for use by the sshd(8) secure shell daemon.
_pflogd
  Pseudo-user for use by the pflogd(8) log daemon with the pf(4) packet filter.
_rwhod
  Pseudo-user for use by the rwhod(8) system status daemon.
_proxy
  Pseudo-user for use by the ftp-proxy(8) and tftp-proxy(8) proxy daemons with packet filters such as pf(4) or ipnat(4).
_timedc
  Pseudo-user for use by the timedc(8) tool to communicate with the timed(8) time server daemon.
_sdpd
  Pseudo-user for use by the sdpd(8) Bluetooth service discovery protocol daemon.
_httpd
  Pseudo-user for use by the httpd(8) (bozohttpd) web server.
_mdnsd
  Pseudo-user for use by the mdnsd(8) multicast DNS and DNS service discovery daemon.
_tests
  Pseudo-user for use by atf(7) automatic tests that request to run unprivileged. Default value for the ‘unprivileged-user’ configuration variable; see tests(7).
_tcpdump
  Pseudo-user for use by the tcpdump(8) network traffic dumper and analyzer.
_tss
  Pseudo-user for use by the tcsd(8) ‘Trusted Computing’ daemon TPM to manage a TPM.
_dhcpcd
  Pseudo-user for use by the dhcpcd(8) DHCP Client Daemon.
_rtadvd
  Pseudo-user for use by the rtadvd(8) IPv6 network router advertisement daemon.
_unbound
  Pseudo-user for the unbound(8) recursive DNS resolver.
_nsd
  Pseudo-user for the nsd(8) authoritative DNS nameserver.
uucp
  Pseudo-user for use by historic UUCP software, available now in pkgsrc(7).
nobody
  Traditional pseudo-user used for dropping privileges. Modern practice is to assign to each different daemon its own separate pseudo-user account and group so that if one daemon is compromised it does not compromise all the other daemons.

All new standard NetBSD pseudo-user account names should begin with an underscore ‘_’ to distinguish them from accounts that real users might add, and should have a primary group of the same name; real users should accordingly avoid such account names.

# SEE ALSO

groups(7)

Marshall Kirk McKusick, Keith Bostic, Michael J. Karels, Samuel J. Leffler, and Mike Hibler, Installing and Operating 4.4BSD UNIX, /usr/share/doc/smm/setup, May 14, 1994.

April 2, 2020 | NetBSD 11.99