chfn(1) General Commands Manual chfn(1)Name
chfn - change system finger entry
Syntax
chfn [ loginname ]
Description
The command is used to change information about users. This information is used by the program, among others. It consists of the user's
real name, office room number, office phone number, and home phone number. The command prompts the user for each field. Included in the
prompt is a default value, which is enclosed between brackets. The default value is accepted simply by typing <CR>. To enter a blank
field, type the word `none'. This is an example:
% chfn
Changing finger information for doe
Name [John Doe]:
Office number [ABC-1/K0]: DEF-2/K1
Office Phone []: 1863
Home Phone [5771546]: none
The command allows phone numbers to be entered with or without hyphens. No entries may contain colons, commas, or control characters.
It is a good idea to run after running to make sure everything is the way you want it.
The optional argument loginname is used to change another person's finger information. This can only be done by the superuser.
Restrictions
The encoding of the office and extension information is installation dependent.
Because two users may try to write the file at once, a synchronization method was developed. On rare occasions, a message that the pass-
word file is "busy" will be printed. In this case, sleeps for a while and then tries to write to the file again.
If the passwd entry is distributed from another host will not modify it.
See Also
chsh(1), finger(1), passwd(1), passwd(5yp)chfn(1)
Check Out this Related 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)