chfn(1) [suse man page]
chfn(1) General Commands Manual chfn(1) NAME
chfn - change finger information SYNOPSIS
chfn [-D binddn] [-P path] [-f name] [-o office] [-p phone] [-h home_phone] [-m other] [-r service] [-q] [-u] [-v] [user] DESCRIPTION
chfn is used to change the user finger information. This are the users fullname, office room number, office phone number and home phone number. This information is stored in the /etc/passwd file and typically printed by finger(1) and similiar programs. A normal user may only change the fields for their own account, the super user may change the fields for any account. Also, only the super user may use the -o option to change the undefined portions of the GECOS field. If no information is given on the command line, chfn operates in an interactive fashion, prompting the user for each field. Enter the new value to change the field, or leave the line blank to use the current value. Enter none or a blank only to remove the current value. The current value is displayed between a pair of [ ] marks. The only restrictions placed on the contents of the fields is that no control characters may be present, nor any of comma, colon, or equal sign. The other field does not have this restriction, and is used to store accounting information used by other applications. This version of chfn is able to change the shell of local, NIS, NIS+ and LDAP accounts, if the permissions allow it. OPTIONS
-D, --binddn binddn Use the Distinguished Name binddn to bind to the LDAP directory. The user will be prompted for a password for simple authentica- tion. -P, --path path The passwd and shadow files are located below the specified directory path. chfn will use this files, not /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow. This is useful for example on NIS master servers, where you do not want to give all users in the NIS database auto- matic access to your NIS server and the NIS map is build from special files. -f, --full-name Specify your real name. -o, --office Specify your office room number. -p, --phone Specify your office phone number. -h, --home-phone Specify your home phone number. -m, --other Specify the undefined portions of the GECOS field. -r, --service Specify the service where the GECOS field should be changed. Supported services are files, ldap, nis and nisplus. -q, --quite Don't be verbose. -u, --usage Print a usage message and exit. --help Print a more verbose help text and exit. -v, --version Print version information and exit. ENVIRONMENT
SHADOW_CHFN - If this environment variable is set to 1, the chfn options are compatible to the version from the shadow suite. FILES
/etc/passwd - user account information SEE ALSO
chsh(1), finger(1), passwd(5) AUTHOR
Thorsten Kukuk <kukuk@suse.de> pwdutils February 2004 chfn(1)
Check Out this Related Man Page
CHFN(1) User Commands CHFN(1) NAME
chfn - change real user name and information SYNOPSIS
chfn [options] [LOGIN] DESCRIPTION
The chfn command changes user fullname, office room number, office phone number, 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. OPTIONS
The options which apply to the chfn command are: -f, --full-name FULL_NAME Change the user's full name. -h, --home-phone HOME_PHONE Change the user's home phone number. -o, --other OTHER Change the user's other GECOS information. This field is used to store accounting information used by other applications, and can be changed only by a superuser. -r, --room ROOM_NUMBER Change the user's room number. -R, --root CHROOT_DIR Apply changes in the CHROOT_DIR directory and use the configuration files from the CHROOT_DIR directory. -u, --help Display help message and exit. -w, --work-phone WORK_PHONE Change the user's office phone number. 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). shadow-utils 4.5 01/25/2018 CHFN(1)