chfn(1) [hpux man page]

chfn(1) 						      General Commands Manual							   chfn(1)

NAME

       chfn - change user information used by finger command

SYNOPSIS

       [login-name]

       [login-name]

       [login-name]

       [login-name]

DESCRIPTION

       The  command  changes  the  user  information  that is stored in the repository for the current logged-in user or for the user specified by
       login-name (see passwd(1)).

       The information is organized as four comma-separated subfields within the reserved(5th) field of the password file entry.  It consists	of
       the  user's  full  name, location code, office phone number, and home phone number, in that order.  This information is used by the command
       and other programs (see finger(1)).

       prompts you for each subfield.  The prompt includes a default value, which is enclosed in brackets.  Accept the default value  by  pressing
       the Return key.	To enter a blank subfield, type the word

       The  DCE  repository is only available if Integrated Login has been configured; see auth.adm(1M).  If Integrated Login has been configured,
       other considerations apply.  A user with appropriate DCE privileges is capable of modifying a  user's  (gecos)  information;  this  is  not
       dependent upon superuser privileges.

       If the repository is not specified (as in [login-name]), the information is changed in the file only.

       Run after running to make sure the information was processed correctly.

   Notes
       The  command  is a hard link to the command.  When is executed, actually the command gets executed with appropriate arguments to change the
       user gecos information in the repository specified in the command line.	If no repository is specified, the gecos information is changed in
       the file.

   Arguments
	      login-name  A login name of a user.

   Options
       The following option is recognized:

	      Specify the repository to which the operation is to be applied.
		     Supported repositories include and

   Subfield Values
	      Up to 1022 printing characters.

				  The  command and other utilities expand an found anywhere in this subfield by substituting the login name for it
				  and shifting the first letter of the login name to uppercase.  does not alter the input

	      Up to 1022 printing characters.

	      Up to 25 printing characters.

				  inserts appropriate hyphens if the value is all digits.

	      Up to 25 printing characters.

				  inserts appropriate hyphens if the value is all digits.

   Security Restrictions
       You must have appropriate privileges to use the optional login-name argument to change another user's information.

EXAMPLES

       The following is a sample run.  The user's input is shown in regular type.

WARNINGS

       The encoding of office and extension information is installation-dependent.

       For historical reasons, the user's name, etc., are stored in the file.  This is an inappropriate place to store the information.

       Because two or more users may try to write the file at the same time, a synchronization method was developed.  prints a	message  that  the
       file is busy.  When this occurs, sleeps for a short time, then tries to write to the file again.

AUTHOR

       was developed by the University of California, Berkeley.

FILES

SEE ALSO

       chsh(1), finger(1), passwd(1), passwd(4).

																	   chfn(1)

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CHFN(1) 							   User Commands							   CHFN(1)

NAME

       chfn - change real user name and information

SYNOPSIS

       chfn [-f full_name] [-r room_no] [-w work_ph] [-h home_ph] [-o other] [user]

DESCRIPTION

       The chfn command changes user fullname, office number, office extension, and home phone number information for a user's account. This
       information is typically printed by finger(1) and similar programs. A normal user may only change the fields for her own account, subject
       to the restrictions in /etc/login.defs. (The default configuration is to prevent users from changing their fullname.) The superuser may
       change any field for any account. Additionally, only the superuser may use the -o option to change the undefined portions of the GECOS
       field.

       These fields must not contain any colons. Except for the other field, they should not contain any comma or equal sign. It is also
       recommended to avoid non-US-ASCII characters, but this is only enforced for the phone numbers. The other field is used to store accounting
       information used by other applications.

       If none of the options are selected, chfn operates in an interactive fashion, prompting the user with the current values for all of the
       fields. Enter the new value to change the field, or leave the line blank to use the current value. The current value is displayed between a
       pair of [ ] marks. Without options, chfn prompts for the current user account.

CONFIGURATION

       The following configuration variables in /etc/login.defs change the behavior of this tool:

       CHFN_RESTRICT (string)
	   This parameter specifies which values in the gecos field of the /etc/passwd file may be changed by regular users using the chfn
	   program. It can be any combination of letters f, r, w, h, for Full name, Room number, Work phone, and Home phone, respectively. For
	   backward compatibility, yes is equivalent to rwh and no is equivalent to frwh. If not specified, only the superuser can make any
	   changes. The most restrictive setting is better achieved by not installing chfn SUID.

FILES

       /etc/login.defs
	   Shadow password suite configuration.

       /etc/passwd
	   User account information.

SEE ALSO

       chsh(1), login.defs(5), passwd(5).

User Commands							    06/24/2011								   CHFN(1)

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chfn(1) [hpux man page]

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