Process Understanding

[Dan Track]

Hi

I'm trying to get my head round how processes start and how they get
their environment, especially env variables.

Let's say you have two scenarios, one where a user e.g www has the
following entry in /etc/passwd

www:x:500:500::/home/www:/bin/bash

and the other where the user has the following entry:

apache:x:48:48:Apache:/var/www:/sbin/nologin

The main difference between the two that I would like to focus on is
the that one user has a bash shell (www) while the other has no shell
(apache).

If both users are used to start an httpd process, then where and how
do the processess get their environment variables, i.e what files are
read in both cases e.g /etc/profile, /etc/bashrc etc.?

Thank in advance
Dan