in Python and linux how to get given user's id [duplicate]

Question

There is os.getuid() which "Returns the current process’s user id.". But how do I find out any given user's id?

Answer 1

You could use pwd.getpwnam():

In [5]: pwd.getpwnam('aix').pw_uid Out[5]: 1004 

Answer 2

Assuming what you want is the username string associated with the userid for your program, try:

import os import pwd pwd.getpwuid( os.getuid() ).pw_name 

Use os.geteuid() to get the effective uid instead, if that difference matters to you.

Use pw_gecos instead of pw_name to get the "real name" if that's populated on your system.