path: root/chpass/chpass.1

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.\"     @(#)chpass.1	8.2 (Berkeley) 12/30/93
.\"
.Dd December 30, 1993
.Dt CHPASS 1
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm chpass, chfn, chsh, ypchpass, ypchfn, ypchsh
.Nd add or change user database information
.Sh SYNOPSIS
chpass
.Op Fl a Ar list
.Op Fl p Ar encpass
.Op Fl s Ar newshell
.Op user
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm chpass
program
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
The options are as follows:
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It 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 (``:'') separated list of all the
user database fields, although they may be empty.
.It Fl p
The super-user is allowed to directly supply an encrypted password field,
in the format used by
.Xr crypt 3 ,
as an argument.
.It Fl s
The
.Fl s
option attempts to change the user's shell to
.Ar newshell .
.El
.Pp
Possible display items are as follows:
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width "Home Directory:" -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 Location:
user's normal location
.It Home Phone:
user's home phone
.It Office Phone:
user's office 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 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.
.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 is currently unused.  In the near future it will be a key to
a
.Xr termcap 5
style database of user attributes.
.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,
.Pa /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
.Pa /etc/shells .
.Pp
The last four fields are for storing the user's
.Ar full name , office location ,
and
.Ar home
and
.Ar work telephone
numbers.
.Pp
Once the information has been verified,
.Nm chpass
uses
.Xr pwd_mkdb 8
to update the user database.
.Sh ENVIRONMENT
The
.Xr vi 1
editor will be used unless the environment variable 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 super-user, may edit the information associated
with the user.
.Sh NIS INTERACTION
.Nm Chpass
can also be used in conjunction with NIS, however some restrictions
apply.
Currently,
.Nm chpass
can only make changes to the NIS passwd maps through
.Xr yppasswdd 8 ,
which only permits changes to a user's password, shell and gecos
fields. It can not be used to change other user information or to
add new records to the NIS passwd maps. (Doing that would require
something such as ypupdated, which is not yet supported.)
Furthermore,
.Xr yppasswdd 8
requires password authentication before it will make any
changes, even if it receives a request from the super-user.
.Pp
As a result, the following restrictions apply when
.Nm chpass
is used with NIS:
.Bl -enum -offset indent
.It
.Pa Only the shell and gecos information may be changed.
All other
fields are restricted, even when
.Nm chpass
is invoked by the super-user, because the
.Xr yppasswdd 8
daemon has no support for updating them. While support for
changing other fields could be added, this would lead to
compatibility problems with other NIS-capable systems.
Even though the super-user may supply data for other fields
while editing an entry, the extra information (other than the
password -- see below) will be silently discarded.
.It
.Pa Password authentication is required.
.Nm Chpass
will prompt for the user's NIS password before effecting
any changes. If the password is invalid, all changes will be
discarded.
.It
.Pa Adding new records to the local
.Pa password database is discouraged.
.Nm Chpass
will allow the administrator to add new records to the
local password database while NIS is enabled, but this can lead to
some confusion since the new records are appended to the end of
the master password file, usually after the special NIS '+' entries.
The administrator should use
.Xr vipw 8
to modify the local password
file when NIS is running.
.It
.Pa Password changes are not permitted.
Users should use
.Xr passwd 1
or
.Xr yppasswd 1
to change their NIS passwords. The super-user is allowed to specify
a new password (even though the ``Password:'' field does not show
up in the editor template, the super-user may add it back by hand),
but even the super-user must supply the user's original password
otherwise
.Xr yppasswdd 8
will refuse to update the NIS maps.
.El
.Sh FILES
.Bl -tag -width /etc/master.passwd -compact
.It Pa /etc/master.passwd
The user database
.It Pa /etc/passwd
A Version 7 format password file
.It Pa /etc/chpass.XXXXXX
Temporary copy of the password file
.It Pa /etc/shells
The list of approved shells
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr login 1 ,
.Xr finger 1 ,
.Xr passwd 1 ,
.Xr getusershell 3 ,
.Xr passwd 5 ,
.Xr pwd_mkdb 8 ,
.Xr vipw 8
.Rs
.%A Robert Morris
and
.%A Ken Thompson
.%T "UNIX Password security"
.Re
.Sh NOTES
The
.Xr chfn 1 ,
.Xr chsh 1 ,
.Xr ypchpass 1 ,
.Xr ypchfn 1
and
.Xr upchsh 1
commands are really only links to
.Nm chpass .
.Sh BUGS
User information should (and eventually will) be stored elsewhere.
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm
command appeared in 
.Bx 4.3 Reno .