How to display the users in a Ubunu linux ?

 On Ubuntu (or any Linux system), you can view all user accounts in several ways.

1. List all users from /etc/passwd

cat /etc/passwd

Or just display the usernames:

cut -d: -f1 /etc/passwd

Example output:

root
daemon
bin
sys
ubuntu
dinesh

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2. Get all users from the system database

This method also works if users come from LDAP or other authentication services:

getent passwd

To show only usernames:

getent passwd | cut -d: -f1

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3. List regular (human) users only

Most system accounts have UIDs below 1000. To show regular users:

awk -F: '$3 >= 1000 {print $1}' /etc/passwd

Example:

dinesh
john
alice

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4. See currently logged-in users

who
or
w

Example:

dinesh pts/0 2026-07-09 09:00

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5. Check users with sudo privileges

Members of the sudo group can run administrative commands:

getent group sudo

Or:

grep '^sudo:' /etc/group

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6. Count total users

getent passwd | wc -l

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7. Display users and their UID/GID

getent passwd | awk -F: '{print "User=" $1 ", UID=" $3 ", GID=" $4}'

This can help distinguish system users from normal users.

Most commonly used command:

getent passwd | cut -d: -f1

It lists all users known to the Ubuntu system.