vipw is a small computer program which enables a Unix system administrator to safely and securely edit user or group-related files while setting a proper lock to prevent other users from modifying them until they are saved by the current user.[1]
The following is the list of user and group files that can be modified by the vipw utility.
/etc/passwd“: User account information./etc/shadow“: Secure user account information./etc/group“: Group account information./etc/gshadow“: Secure group account information.This way, you can edit the system files securely using your favorite editor set to the $VISUAL or $EDITOR environment variable, instead of accessing them directly from the CLI editor like GNU Nano or VIM., which is insecure.