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@(#)chpass.1 8.2 (Berkeley) 12/30/93
.Dd April 5, 2012 .Dt CHPASS 1 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm chpass , .Nm chfn , .Nm chsh .Nd add or change user database information .Sh SYNOPSIS .Nm .Op Fl a Ar list .Op Fl s Ar newshell .Op Fl l .Op user .Nm chpass .Op Fl a Ar list .Op Fl s Ar newshell .Op Fl y .Op user .Sh DESCRIPTION .Nm 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.
p Only the information that the user is allowed to change is displayed.
p The options are as follows: l -tag -width Ds t Fl a The super-user 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
q Dq : separated list of all the user database fields, although they may be empty. t Fl s The .Fl s option attempts to change the user's shell to .Ar newshell . t Fl l This option causes the password to be updated only in the local password file. When changing only the local password, .Xr pwd_mkdb 8 is used to update the password databases. t Fl y This forces the YP password database entry to be changed, even if the user has an entry in the local database. The .Xr rpc.yppasswdd 8 daemon should be running on the YP master server. .El
p Possible display items are as follows:
p l -tag -width "Home Directory:" -compact -offset indent t Login : user's login name t Password : user's encrypted password t Uid : user's login t Gid : user's login group t Change : password change time t Expire : account expiration time t Class : user's general classification t Home Directory : user's home directory t Shell : user's login shell t Full Name : user's real name t Location : user's normal location t Home Phone : user's home phone t Office Phone : user's office phone .El
p The .Ar login field is the user name used to access the computer account.
p The .Ar password field contains the encrypted form of the user's password.
p 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.
p 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.
p The .Ar group field is the group that the user will be placed in at login. Since x 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 ) .
p The .Ar change field is the date by which the password must be changed.
p The .Ar expire field is the date on which the account expires.
p Both the .Ar change and .Ar expire fields should be entered in the form .Dq 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.
p The .Ar class field is a key for a user's login class. Login classes are defined in .Xr login.conf 5 , which is a .Xr capfile 5 style database of user attributes, accounting, resource and environment settings.
p The user's .Ar home directory is the full x path name where the user will be placed at login.
p The .Ar shell field is the command interpreter the user prefers. If the .Ar shell field is empty, the Bourne shell,
a /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
p The last four fields are for storing the user's .Ar full name , office location , and .Ar home and .Ar work telephone numbers.
p 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 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. .Sh FILES l -tag -width /etc/master.passwd -compact t Pa /etc/master.passwd The user database t Pa /etc/passwd A Version 7 format password file t Pa /etc/ptmp Lock file for the passwd database t Pa /tmp/pw.XXXXXX Temporary copy of the user passwd information t Pa /etc/shells The list of approved shells .El .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr finger 1 , .Xr login 1 , .Xr passwd 1 , .Xr pwhash 1 , .Xr getusershell 3 , .Xr passwd 5 , .Xr passwd.conf 5 , .Xr pwd_mkdb 8 , .Xr vipw 8 .Rs .%A Robert Morris .%A Ken Thompson .%T "UNIX Password Security" .Re .Sh HISTORY The .Nm command appeared in x 4.3 Reno . .Sh 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.
p User information should (and eventually will) be stored elsewhere.
Indexes created Sat Sep 20 22:09:52 GMT 2025