man 5 sssd-files

SSSD-FILES(5)            File Formats and Conventions            SSSD-FILES(5)

NAME
       sssd-files - SSSD files provider

DESCRIPTION
       This manual page describes the files provider for sssd(8). For a
       detailed syntax reference, refer to the "FILE FORMAT" section of the
       sssd.conf(5) manual page.

       The files provider mirrors the content of the passwd(5) and group(5)
       files. The purpose of the files provider is to make the users and
       groups traditionally only accessible with NSS interfaces also available
       through the SSSD interfaces such as sssd-ifp(5).

       Another reason is to provide efficient caching of local users and
       groups.

       Please note that besides explicit domain definition the files provider
       can be configured also implicitly using 'enable_files_domain' option.
       See sssd.conf(5) for details.

       SSSD never handles resolution of user/group "root". Also resolution of
       UID/GID 0 is not handled by SSSD. Such requests are passed to next NSS
       module (usually files).

       When SSSD is not running or responding, nss_sss returns the UNAVAIL
       code which causes the request to be passed to the next module.

CONFIGURATION OPTIONS
       In addition to the options listed below, generic SSSD domain options
       can be set where applicable. Refer to the section "DOMAIN SECTIONS" of
       the sssd.conf(5) manual page for details on the configuration of an
       SSSD domain. But the purpose of the files provider is to expose the
       same data as the UNIX files, just through the SSSD interfaces.
       Therefore not all generic domain options are supported. Likewise, some
       global options, such as overriding the shell in the "nss" section for
       all domains has no effect on the files domain unless explicitly
       specified per-domain.

       passwd_files (string)
           Comma-separated list of one or multiple password filenames to be
           read and enumerated by the files provider, inotify monitor watches
           will be set on each file to detect changes dynamically.

           Default: /etc/passwd

       group_files (string)
           Comma-separated list of one or multiple group filenames to be read
           and enumerated by the files provider, inotify monitor watches will
           be set on each file to detect changes dynamically.

           Default: /etc/group

       fallback_to_nss (boolean)
           While updating the internal data SSSD will return an error and let
           the client continue with the next NSS module. This helps to avoid
           delays when using the default system files /etc/passwd and
           /etc/group and the NSS configuration has 'sss' before 'files' for
           the 'passwd' and 'group' maps.

           If the files provider is configured to monitor other files it makes
           sense to set this option to 'False' to avoid inconsistent behavior
           because in general there would be no other NSS module which can be
           used as a fallback.

           Default: True

EXAMPLE
       The following example assumes that SSSD is correctly configured and
       files is one of the domains in the [sssd] section.

           [domain/files]
           id_provider = files

       To leverage caching of local users and groups by SSSD nss_sss module
       must be listed before nss_files module in /etc/nsswitch.conf.

           passwd:     sss files
           group:      sss files

SEE ALSO
       sssd(8), sssd.conf(5), sssd-ldap(5), sssd-ldap-attributes(5), sssd-
       krb5(5), sssd-simple(5), sssd-ipa(5), sssd-ad(5), sssd-files(5), sssd-
       sudo(5), sssd-session-recording(5), sss_cache(8), sss_debuglevel(8),
       sss_obfuscate(8), sss_seed(8), sssd_krb5_locator_plugin(8),
       sss_ssh_authorizedkeys(8), sss_ssh_knownhostsproxy(8), sssd-ifp(5),
       pam_sss(8).  sss_rpcidmapd(5) sssd-systemtap(5)

AUTHORS
       The SSSD upstream - https://github.com/SSSD/sssd/

SSSD                              04/07/2025                     SSSD-FILES(5)