338

The title says it all. What command I need to run from a terminal to find my user ID (UID)?

Improve this question
1

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
438

There are a couple of ways:

  1. Using the id command you can get the real and effective user and group IDs.

     id -u <username>

    If no username is supplied to id, it will default to the current user.

  2. Using the shell variable. (It is not an environment variable, and thus is not available in env).

     echo $UID
Improve this answer
5
  • 8
    How about GID ?
    – kangear
    Oct 29, 2015 at 1:11
  • 26
    @kangear id -g <username>
    – itsazzad
    Dec 18, 2015 at 15:23
  • It's worth noting that, due to the fact that the variables are resolved before being passed to a command, we have that sudo echo ${UID} prints out 1000 (or whatever your sudoer user's UID is), whereas sudo id -u prints out 0.
    – adentinger
    Dec 19, 2018 at 20:33
  • The username is optional, defaulting to yourself. Maybe square brackets would be better for indicating this, instead of angle brackets.
    – mwfearnley
    May 13, 2019 at 15:44
  • 2
    The second part of this answer is wrong. The variable in question is explicitly not an environment variable. It's a shell variable. Big difference. You can see this with echo $UID versus env|grep ^UID in Bash, for example. This means in particular that the first method is more robust and the second will only work in shell scripts, not - say - in something like Python (python -c 'import os; print(os.environ)' to see the environment).
    – 0xC0000022L
    Dec 16, 2020 at 15:39
102

Simply try

id

This will return your user ID, group ID, and all your groups.

Improve this answer
3
  • 15
    or id -u to see just the UID
    – steeldriver
    May 17, 2014 at 13:21
  • Yepp. Prefer Jobin's answer, if you need to avoid parsing the output.
    – TAq
    May 17, 2014 at 13:25
  • 4
    so much easier with id -u and id -g. Thanks. :)
    – thoroc
    Aug 3, 2017 at 17:00
17

Try also :

getent passwd username

This will display user id , group id and home directory .

Or:

grep username /etc/passwd
Improve this answer
2
  • why to try long or alternative command while echo $UID and id -u is simple and exact according to question?
    – Pandya
    May 17, 2014 at 13:37
  • 7
    thats right , but its good to know all options
    – nux
    May 17, 2014 at 13:38
10

You can use id command.

Manpage

Improve this answer

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge that you have read and understand our privacy policy and code of conduct.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.