.\" $OpenBSD: chpass.1,v 1.34 2007/05/31 19:20:08 jmc Exp $ .\" $NetBSD: chpass.1,v 1.7 1996/05/15 21:50:40 jtc Exp $ .\" .\" Copyright (c) 1988, 1990, 1993 .\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. .\" .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions .\" are met: .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. .\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors .\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software .\" without specific prior written permission. .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF .\" SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .\" @(#)chpass.1 8.2 (Berkeley) 12/30/93 .\" .Dd $Mdocdate: May 31 2007 $ .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 BSD 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 ``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 UNIX 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 a Version 7 format password file .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 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 "UNIX Password Security" .Re .Sh HISTORY The .Nm command appeared in .Bx 4.3 Reno . .Sh BUGS User information should (and eventually will) be stored elsewhere.