UNIX gecos field

[ggoldman]

Hi. This is very embarrassing, but I forgot what the mnemonic gecos stands for. I of course know what the field is used for, but for the life of me I can no longer remember what it stands for. Getting old I guess.

Thanks.

Geoff Goldman
ggoldman@ottaway.com [sig][/sig]

 

[ElgisRamon]

Quoting Dennis:
GECOS is a leftover of times when we used a GECOS server to print our manuals... in that field was written the password to authenticate with the server.
The field was named GCOS originally, but that was bought by GE then was changed to GECOS. That was an operation sistem name.

Bye [sig][/sig]

 

[ggoldman]

Thanks Ramon.

I had thought though that the letters actually represented other words.

Hold the fort.

Geoff Goldman
ggoldman@ottaway.com [sig][/sig]

 

[shiraz]

Hi Geoff
As i believe Gecos means " general Information".In /etc/passwd there is
Gecos field which indicates User full name or username.In AIX you can
use chfn command to change Gecos attribute of any user.
Hope it will work.

Regds

Shiraz
[sig][/sig]