CHPASS(1)						    BSD General Commands Manual 						 CHPASS(1)

NAME

     chpass, chfn, chsh -- add or change user database information

SYNOPSIS

     chpass [-a list] [-s newshell] [-l] [user]
     chpass [-a list] [-s newshell] [-y] [user]

DESCRIPTION

     chpass allows editing of the user database information associated with user or, by default, the current user.  The information is formatted
     and supplied to an editor for changes.

     Only the information that the user is allowed to change is displayed.

     The options are as follows:

     -a      The super-user is allowed to directly supply a user database entry, in the format specified by passwd(5), as an argument.	This argu-
	     ment must be a colon (``:'') separated list of all the user database fields, although they may be empty.

     -s      The -s option attempts to change the user's shell to newshell.

     -l      This option causes the password to be updated only in the local password file.  When changing only the local password, pwd_mkdb(8) is
	     used to update the password databases.

     -y      This forces the YP password database entry to be changed, even if the user has an entry in the local database.  The rpc.yppasswdd(8)
	     daemon should be running on the YP master server.

     Possible display items are as follows:

	   Login:	    user's login name
	   Password:	    user's encrypted password
	   Uid: 	    user's login
	   Gid: 	    user's login group
	   Change:	    password change time
	   Expire:	    account expiration time
	   Class:	    user's general classification
	   Home Directory:  user's home directory
	   Shell:	    user's login shell
	   Full Name:	    user's real name
	   Location:	    user's normal location
	   Home Phone:	    user's home phone
	   Office Phone:    user's office phone

     The login field is the user name used to access the computer account.

     The password field contains the encrypted form of the user's password.

     The uid field is the number associated with the login field.  Both of these fields should be unique across the system (and often across a
     group of systems) as they control file access.

     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.  Rou-
     tines that manipulate these files will often return only one of the multiple entries, and that one by random selection.

     The group field is the group that the user will be placed in at login.  Since BSD supports multiple groups (see groups(1)) this field cur-
     rently has little special meaning.  This field may be filled in with either a number or a group name (see group(5)).

     The change field is the date by which the password must be changed.

     The expire field is the date on which the account expires.

     Both the change and expire fields should be entered in the form ``month day year'' where month is the month name (the first three characters
     are sufficient), day is the day of the month, and year is the year.

     The class field is a key for a user's login class.  Login classes are defined in login.conf(5), which is a termcap(5) style database of user
     attributes, accounting, resource and environment settings.

     The user's home directory is the full UNIX path name where the user will be placed at login.

     The shell field is the command interpreter the user prefers.  If the shell field is empty, the Bourne shell, /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 /etc/shells.

     The last four fields are for storing the user's full name, office location, and home and work telephone numbers.

     Once the information has been verified, chpass uses pwd_mkdb(8) to update the user database.

ENVIRONMENT

     The vi(1) editor will be used unless the environment variable EDITOR is set to an alternative editor.  When the editor terminates, the infor-
     mation 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.

FILES

     /etc/master.passwd  The user database
     /etc/passwd	 A Version 7 format password file
     /etc/ptmp		 Lock file for the passwd database
     /tmp/pw.XXXXXX	 Temporary copy of the user passwd information
     /etc/shells	 The list of approved shells

SEE ALSO

     finger(1), login(1), passwd(1), pwhash(1), getusershell(3), passwd(5), passwd.conf(5), pwd_mkdb(8), vipw(8)

     Robert Morris and Ken Thompson, UNIX Password Security.

HISTORY

     The chpass command appeared in 4.3BSD-Reno.

BUGS

     This program's interface is poorly suited to cryptographic systems such as Kerberos, and consequently Kerberos password changing is not a
     feature of this program.

     User information should (and eventually will) be stored elsewhere.

BSD
								  October 7, 2006							       BSD