VIPW(8) | System Manager's Manual | VIPW(8) |
vipw
— edit the
password file
vipw |
[-d directory] |
vipw
edits the password file after setting
the appropriate locks, and does any necessary processing after the password
file is unlocked. If the password file is already locked for editing by
another user, vipw
will ask you to try again later.
The default editor for vipw
is
vi(1).
vipw
performs a number of consistency
checks on the password entries, and will not allow a password file with a
“mangled” entry to be installed. If
vipw
rejects the new password file, the user is
prompted to re-enter the edit session.
Once the information has been verified,
vipw
uses
pwd_mkdb(8) to update the
user database. This is run in the background, and, at very large sites could
take several minutes. Until this update is completed, the password file is
unavailable for other updates and the new information is not available to
programs.
The options are as follows:
-d
directoryIf a vipw
session is killed it may leave
“/etc/ptmp”, which will cause future
vipw
executions to fail with
“vipw: the passwd file is busy”, until
it is removed.
If the following environment variable exists it will be used by
vipw
:
chpass(1), passwd(1), pwhash(1), passwd(5), passwd.conf(5), pwd_mkdb(8), user(8)
The vipw
command appeared in
4.0BSD.
September 4, 2005 | NetBSD 10.99 |