getent database [key ...]
The getent program gathers entries from the specified administrative database using the specified search keys. Where database is one of passwd, group, hosts, services, protocols, or networks.
getent is written by Thorsten Kukuk <kukuk@suse.de> for the GNU C Library. This man page is written by Joel Klecker <espy@debian.org> December 17, 1998 2.1 GETENT(1)