path: root/usr.bin/chpass/chpass.1

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.\"     @(#)chpass.1	8.2 (Berkeley) 12/30/93
.\"
.Dd $Mdocdate: November 15 2014 $
.Dt CHPASS 1
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm chpass ,
.Nm chfn ,
.Nm chsh
.Nd add or change user database information
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm chpass
.Op Fl ly
.Op Fl s Ar newshell
.Op Ar user
.Nm chpass
.Op Fl l
.Fl a Ar list
.Sh DESCRIPTION
.Nm chpass
allows editing of the user database information associated
with
.Ar user ,
or, by default, the current user.
The information is formatted and supplied to an editor for changes.
.Pp
Only the information that the user is allowed to change is displayed.
.Pp
If YP is enabled change requests are first tried in the local database,
and then in the YP database, if there was no entry to change locally.
.Pp
.Nm chfn
and
.Nm chsh
are synonyms for
.Nm chpass .
.Pp
The options are as follows:
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It Fl a Ar list
The superuser is allowed to directly supply a user database
entry, in the format specified by
.Xr passwd 5 ,
as an argument.
This argument must be a colon
.Pq Sq \&:
separated list of all the
user database fields, although they may be empty.
This operation is not supported in YP environments; only local additions
can be performed which requires the
.Fl l
flag to be specified.
.It Fl l
In environments where YP is enabled, always alter local information as
opposed to information in YP.
.It Fl s Ar newshell
Attempts to change the user's shell to
.Ar newshell .
.It Fl y
In environments where YP is enabled, always change the YP entry, even if this
is a modification request and there is a local entry for the specified user.
.El
.Pp
Possible display items are as follows:
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width "Office Location:" -compact -offset indent
.It Login:
user's login name
.It Password:
user's encrypted password
.It Uid:
user's login
.It Gid:
user's login group
.It Change:
password change time
.It Expire:
account expiration time
.It Class:
user's general classification
.It Home Directory:
user's home directory
.It Shell:
user's login shell
.It Full Name:
user's real name
.It Office Location:
user's office location
.It Office Phone:
user's office phone
.It Home Phone:
user's home phone
.El
.Pp
The
.Ar login
field is the user name used to access the computer account.
.Pp
The
.Ar password
field contains the encrypted form of the user's password.
.Pp
The
.Ar uid
field is the number associated with the
.Ar login
field.
Both of these fields should be unique across the system (and often
across a group of systems) as they control file access.
.Pp
While it is possible to have multiple entries with identical login names
and/or identical user IDs, 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.
.Pp
The
.Ar group
field is the group that the user will be placed in at login.
Since
.Bx
supports multiple groups (see
.Xr groups 1 ) ,
this field currently has little special meaning.
This field may be filled in with either a number or a group name (see
.Xr group 5 ) .
.Pp
The
.Ar change
field is the date by which the password must be changed.
.Pp
The
.Ar expire
field is the date on which the account expires.
.Pp
Both the
.Ar change
and
.Ar expire
fields should be entered in the form
.Ar month day year
where
.Ar month
is the month name (the first three characters are sufficient),
.Ar day
is the day of the month, and
.Ar year
is the year.
.Pp
The
.Ar class
field specifies a key in the
.Xr login.conf 5
database of login class attributes.
If empty, the
.Dq default
record is used.
.Pp
The user's
.Ar home directory
is the full
.Ux
path name where the user will be placed at login.
.Pp
The
.Ar shell
field is the command interpreter the user prefers.
If the
.Ar shell
field is empty, the Bourne shell
.Pq Pa /bin/sh
is assumed.
When altering a login shell, and not the superuser, 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
.Pa /etc/shells .
.Pp
The last four fields are for storing the user's
.Ar full name , office location ,
and
.Ar work
and
.Ar home telephone
numbers.
.Pp
Once the information has been verified,
.Nm
uses
.Xr pwd_mkdb 8
to update the user database.
.Sh ENVIRONMENT
The
.Xr vi 1
editor will be used unless the environment variable
.Ev EDITOR
is set to
an alternate editor.
When the editor terminates, the information is re-read and used to
update the user database itself.
Only the user, or the superuser, may edit the information associated
with the user.
.Sh FILES
.Bl -tag -width /var/tmp/pw.XXXXXXXXXX -compact
.It Pa /etc/master.passwd
user database
.It Pa /etc/passwd
user database, with confidential information removed
.It Pa /etc/ptmp
lock file for the passwd database
.It Pa /etc/shells
list of approved shells
.It Pa /var/tmp/pw.XXXXXXXXXX
temporary copy of the user passwd information
.El
.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
.Bl -diag
.It "Attempting to lock password file, please wait or press ^C to abort"
.Pp
The password file is currently locked by another process;
.Nm
will keep trying to lock the password file until it succeeds or
the user hits the interrupt character (control-C by default).
If
.Nm
is interrupted while trying to gain the lock any changes made will be lost.
.Pp
If the process holding the lock was prematurely terminated the lock
file may be stale and
.Nm
will wait forever trying to lock the password file.
To determine whether a live process is actually holding the lock, the
admin may run the following:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
$ fstat /etc/ptmp
.Ed
.Pp
If no process is listed, it is safe to remove the
.Pa /etc/ptmp
file to clear the error.
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr finger 1 ,
.Xr login 1 ,
.Xr passwd 1 ,
.Xr getusershell 3 ,
.Xr login.conf 5 ,
.Xr passwd 5 ,
.Xr pwd_mkdb 8 ,
.Xr vipw 8
.Rs
.%A Robert Morris
.%A Ken Thompson
.%T Password security: a case history
.%J Communications of the ACM
.%V Volume 22
.%N Issue 11
.%D Nov. 1979
.%P 594\(en597
.Re
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm
command appeared in
.Bx 4.3 Reno .