yppasswd(1)						      General Commands Manual						       yppasswd(1)

NAME

       yppasswd, ypchfn, ypchsh - change your password in the NIS database

SYNOPSIS

       yppasswd [-f] [-l] [-p] [user]
       ypchfn [user]
       ypchsh [user]

DESCRIPTION

       The  standard  passwd(1),  chfn(1)  and	chsh(1)  cannot be used under Linux to change the users NIS password, shell and GECOS information,
       because they only modify the password file on the local host.  For changing the NIS information, they are replaced by  their  NIS  counter-
       parts, yppasswd, ypchfn and ypchsh.

       These  commands	are  the  same program, linked to different names.  Using the command line switches, you can choose whether to update your
       password -p, your login shell -l, or your GECOS field -f, or a combination of them.  yppasswd implies the -p option, if no other option	is
       given. If you use the -f or -l option, you also need to add the -p flag.  ypchfn implies the -f option, and ypchsh -l.

       When  invoked  without  the  user  argument,  the account information for the invoking user will be updated, otherwise that of user will be
       updated. This option is only available to the super-user. If the yppasswdd daemon on the server supports it, you can give the root password
       of the server instead of the users [old] password.

       All tools will first prompt the user for the current NIS password needed for authentication with the yppasswdd(8) daemon. Subsequently, the
       program prompts for the updated information:

       yppasswd or -l
	      Change the user's NIS password.	 The user is prompted for the new password.  While typing the password, echoing is turned off,	so
	      the  password  does  not appear on the screen. An empty password is rejected, as are passwords shorter than six characters. The user
	      will then be requested to retype the password to make sure it wasn't    misspelled the first time.

       ypchsh or -l
	      Change the user's login shell. The user is prompted for a new shell, offering the old one as default:

		Login shell [/bin/sh]: _

	      To accept the default, simply press return. To clear the shell field in your passwd(5) file entry  (so  that  the  system's  default
	      shell is selected), enter the string none.

       ypchfn or -f
	      Change  the  user's  full  name  and  related  information. Traditionally, some applications expect the GECOS field (field 4) of the
	      passwd(5) file to contain the user's real name (as opposed to the login name) plus some additional information like the office phone
	      number. This information is displayed by finger(1) and probably some other tools, too.

	      When setting the full name, ypchfn displays the following prompts, with the defaults in brackets:

		Name [Joe Doe]:
		Location [2nd floor, bldg 34]:
		Office Phone [12345]:
		Home Phone []:

	      To accept a default, simply press return. To clear a field, enter the string none.

SEE ALSO

       chfn(1), chsh(1), finger(1), passwd(5), passwd(1), ypcat(1), yppasswdd(8), ypserv(8), ypwhich(1)

AUTHOR

       yppasswd is part of the yp-tools package, which was written by Thorsten Kukuk <kukuk@suse.de>.

YP Tools 2.7							     May 1998							       yppasswd(1)