In most cases, it doesn't matter terribly much whether you say "a passive verb" or "a verb in the passive" or "a verb in the passive voice" or "a verb with a passive construction". (Strictly, there isn't necessarily just one passive construction, e.g. you might say that "They were hurt" and "They got hurt" are two different passive constructions.)
In the sentence 'Opportunity is missed by most people', there is no linking verb. It is an example of a passive sentence. The active form of it is, 'Most people miss opportunity'. The verb is 'miss' and its passive equivalent is formed by the auxiliary is + past participle of 'miss'.
"A copular verb (also called linking verb) is a special kind of
verb used to join an adjective or noun complement to a subject.
Common examples are: be (is, am, are, was, were), appear, seem, look,
sound, smell, taste, feel, become and get".
All participle forms (present or past participle) can act as adjectives when they modify nouns.
In the sentence 'A letter was sent', the verb is not 'was'
alone. It is the verb phrase 'was sent' (the passive voice formed
using the auxiliary was + Past participle of 'send').
Example: You prepared 10 letters. You sent 5 letters or Five letters were sent. You have five letters remaining.
Now you can classify as: Some are sent letters and others are remaining letters.
The verb 'are' here is a linking verb and 'sent' and 'remaining' are adjectives - the former past participle and the latter present participle.
Direct or indirect object can also be changed to subject of the
passive sentences.
I gave you a letter. (Active Voice, you = I O, a letter =D O)
You were given a letter. -Passive.
A letter was given to you. -Passive.
Best Answer
Let's directly address your question, which is asking: How is the verb "is" being used in that example sentence?
For the OP's example, this boils down to whether to treat the word "allowed" as a verb or as an adjective. If the word "allowed" is a verb, then it is a past-participle verb form in a clause with passive voice. If it is an adjective, then the clause has active voice.
I think that reasonable arguments can be made for both the verbal interpretation and for the adjectival interpretation for your example. (In general: the context might often prefer one interpretation over the other.)
LONG VERSION: First, a little background info related to the verb "BE". In today's English, the verb "BE" has at least six major uses:
Your question involves the usages: "copular BE" vs "passive BE".
(NOTE: Above examples and info borrowed from 2002 CGEL, page 113.)
For clauses structured like yours, usually the surrounding context is what decides which interpretation is preferred or expected. But since we don't have the context, we'll have to just look at the clause in isolation and see what sort of diagnostic tools can be used to support a copular BE interpretation (adjectival "allowed") or a passive BE interpretation (verbal passive "allowed").
For verbal passive: Two common diagnostic tests are:
to see if an agentive by-phrase can be inserted into the example without significantly altering the meaning (also popularly known as the "by zombies" test),
to see if there is a somewhat similar active version for that example.
And, for "This is allowed", it seems that we can do exactly that for both:
This is allowed by the current authorities.
The current authorities allow this.
So, it seems that, at least a verbal passive interpretation is possible here.
Now, let's if there are some diagnostic tests for the copular BE interpretation, which is the same as the adjective "allowed" interpretation.
For adjective: Some common diagnostic tests are:
to see if the words "too" or "very" can be inserted without significantly changing the meaning,
to see if the verb "BE" can be replaced with verbs like "SEEM, APPEAR, LOOK, REMAIN".
The first diagnostic test doesn't seem to help:
while the second test might be okay, or maybe not:
There are many diagnostic tools that can help in this issue of "participle as verb-form vs participial adjective". For instance: complementation test, occurrences with "seem" test, modification by "very" or "too" test. (CGEL pages 78-9)
Also, in general, a dynamic situation will necessarily disallow the adjectival interpretation; but a stative situation will not necessarily disallow a verbal passive interpretation. Even then, some clauses can mislead: for "It was magnetized" can support both a verbal passive and an adjectival interpretation, while "It became magnetized" supports only the adjectival one (CGEL pages 1436-9). On CGEL page 1437:
In conclusion: I guess the preferred interpretation for your example "This is allowed" will probably depend on the surrounding context. But it does seem to be easier to find supporting info for the verbal passive interpretation than for the adjectival one.
Note: If a past-participle shaped word is commonly used as an adjective, then dictionaries might add that word as an adjective entry--as an attributive adjective and/or a predicative adjective, depending on how it is syntactically used.
Aside: Dictionaries are sometimes looked into for an answer, though of course they are dictionaries and not a grammar source like a reference grammar. But they can sometimes be helpful, somewhat. I had done a very quick look into a few free online dictionaries, and they commonly have the verb usage, and maybe one might mention an attributive adjective usage, but in the dictionaries I've quickly looked at, they don't seem to provide a predicative adjective example-- hopefully the better dictionaries do exactly that (OED?).
Of course, this is a grammar issue (syntax), and so, it's probably better to try and rely on vetted grammar sources, such a reference grammar, than rely on dictionaries (even if it is the OED), especially not on free online dictionaries. A good vetted grammar source is the 2002 reference grammar by Huddleston and Pullum et al., The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (CGEL).
= = = = = PERHAPS SLIGHTLY OFF-TOPIC = = = = =
An excerpt from an online dictionary has come up in this discussion, and so, let's see what it says. The excerpt is from The Free Dictionary for their entry "past participle": http://www.thefreedictionary.com/past+participle
Let's see what information we can get from it that is related to the OP's example:
It says that a past participle is "A verb form . . ."
"[a verb form] that is used as a verbal adjective in phrases such as baked beans and finished work"
"and [that is used] with auxiliaries to form the passive voice or perfect and pluperfect tenses in constructions such as She had baked the beans and The work was finished."
Now, in that last bullet, the examples were given in a different order than I'd have expected. But I'd think it is obvious that "She had baked the beans" is an example of what they call the "perfect/pluperfect tense", and that "The work was finished" is an example of their "passive voice".
Let's look at another part of that excerpt, and see what it seems to be saying: "[a verb form] that is used as a verbal adjective in phrases such as baked beans and finished work." Here, the words "baked" and "finished" are being used as attributive modifiers in the noun phrases "baked beans" and "finished work". Many adjectives are used that way, as attributive modifiers of a noun.
But the OP's example--"This is allowed"--is a clause, not a noun phrase, and so, the OP's example is similar to that dictionary's example "The work was finished", which was their example of passive voice.
So, it seems that that dictionary's excerpt can be used to support the argument that the OP's example has (at least) a passive voice interpretation.
CAVEAT: Though, I will agree that the dictionary's text was sloppily done, and that it could possibly be mis-parsed if the reader didn't already know the answer to begin with. (For I can see a way that a mis-reading could be forced.)