NAME
chpass,
chfn,
chsh —
add or change user database information
SYNOPSIS
chpass |
[-a
list] [-s
newshell]
[-l]
[user] |
chpass |
[-a
list] [-s
newshell]
[-y]
[user] |
DESCRIPTION
chpass allows editing of the user database information
associated with
user or, by default, the current user.
The information is formatted and supplied to an editor for changes.
Only the information that the user is allowed to change is displayed.
The options are as follows:
-
-
- -a
- The super-user is allowed to directly supply a user
database entry, in the format specified by
passwd(5), as an argument.
This argument must be a colon (“:”) separated list of all the
user database fields, although they may be empty.
-
-
- -s
- The -s option attempts to change the
user's shell to newshell.
-
-
- -l
- This option causes the password to be updated only in the
local password file. When changing only the local password,
pwd_mkdb(8) is used to
update the password databases.
-
-
- -y
- This forces the YP password database entry to be changed,
even if the user has an entry in the local database. The
rpc.yppasswdd(8)
daemon should be running on the YP master server.
Possible display items are as follows:
- Login:
- user's login name
- Password:
- user's encrypted password
- Uid:
- user's login
- Gid:
- user's login group
- Change:
- password change time
- Expire:
- account expiration time
- Class:
- user's general classification
- Home Directory:
- user's home directory
- Shell:
- user's login shell
- Full Name:
- user's real name
- Location:
- user's normal location
- Home Phone:
- user's home phone
- Office Phone:
- user's office phone
The
login field is the user name used to access the
computer account.
The
password field contains the encrypted form of the
user's password.
The
uid field is the number associated with the
login field. Both of these fields should be unique
across the system (and often across a group of systems) as they control file
access.
While it is possible to have multiple entries with identical login names and/or
identical user id's, it is usually a mistake to do so. Routines that
manipulate these files will often return only one of the multiple entries, and
that one by random selection.
The
group field is the group that the user will be placed
in at login. Since
BSD supports multiple groups (see
groups(1)) this field currently
has little special meaning. This field may be filled in with either a number
or a group name (see
group(5)).
The
change field is the date by which the password must be
changed.
The
expire field is the date on which the account expires.
Both the
change and
expire fields
should be entered in the form “month day year” where
month is the month name (the first three characters are
sufficient),
day is the day of the month, and
year is the year.
The
class field is a key for a user's login class. Login
classes are defined in
login.conf(5), which is a
capfile(5) style database of
user attributes, accounting, resource and environment settings.
The user's
home directory is the full
UNIX path name where the user will be placed at login.
The
shell field is the command interpreter the user
prefers. If the
shell field is empty, the Bourne shell,
/bin/sh, is assumed. When altering a login shell, and not
the super-user, the user may not change from a non-standard shell or to a
non-standard shell. Non-standard is defined as a shell not found in
/etc/shells.
The last four fields are for storing the user's
full name,
office location, and
home and
work telephone numbers.
Once the information has been verified,
chpass uses
pwd_mkdb(8) to update the user
database.
ENVIRONMENT
The
vi(1) editor will be used unless
the environment variable
EDITOR
is set to an
alternative editor. When the editor terminates, the information is re-read and
used to update the user database itself. Only the user, or the super-user, may
edit the information associated with the user.
FILES
- /etc/master.passwd
- The user database
- /etc/passwd
- A Version 7 format password file
- /etc/ptmp
- Lock file for the passwd database
- /tmp/pw.XXXXXX
- Temporary copy of the user passwd information
- /etc/shells
- The list of approved shells
SEE ALSO
finger(1),
login(1),
passwd(1),
pwhash(1),
getusershell(3),
passwd(5),
passwd.conf(5),
pwd_mkdb(8),
vipw(8)
Robert Morris and
Ken Thompson, UNIX Password
Security.
HISTORY
The
chpass command appeared in
4.3BSD-Reno.
BUGS
This program's interface is poorly suited to cryptographic systems such as
Kerberos, and consequently Kerberos password changing is not a feature of this
program.
User information should (and eventually will) be stored elsewhere.