CHPASS(1) | General Commands Manual | CHPASS(1) |
chpass
, chfn
,
chsh
—
chpass |
[-a list]
[-s newshell]
[-l ] [user] |
chpass |
[-a list]
[-s newshell]
[-y ] [user] |
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
-s
-s
option attempts to change the user's shell
to newshell.-l
-y
Possible display items are as follows:
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.
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.
Robert Morris and Ken Thompson, UNIX Password Security.
chpass
command appeared in
4.3BSD-Reno.
User information should (and eventually will) be stored elsewhere.
April 5, 2012 | NetBSD 9.4 |