System Configuration Files

/etc/fstab

• The /etc/fstab file contains information about disk drives and partitions.
• It is used by the mount command to automatically mount file systems at boot.

Example:

# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
UUID=xxxx-xxxx / ext4 defaults 0 1

/etc/hostname

• The /etc/hostname file contains name of the host (the computer)

Example:

kali

/etc/hosts

• The /etc/hosts file maps hostname to IP addresses.

Example:

127.0.0.1 localhost
192.168.1.100 <myhostname>

/etc/passwd

• The /etc/passwd file contains user account information.

Example:

username:x:1000:1000:User Name,,,:/home/username:/bin/bash

/etc/shadow

• The /etc/shadow contains password information.

Example:

username:$6$hash$hash$hash:18520:0:99999:7:::

/etc/sudoers

• The /etc/sudoers file controls the sudo command, which allows users to run commands as the root user.

Example:

username ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL