CHPASS(1)						      General Commands Manual							 CHPASS(1)

NAME

       chpass - add or change user database information

SYNOPSIS

       chpass [ -a list ] [ 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.  The vi editor will be used unless the environmental variable EDITOR selects  an	alternate  editor.
       When  the editor terminates, the information 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.

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

       Possible display items are as follows:

	       Login:		  user's login name
	       Password:	  user's encrypted password
	       Uid:		  user's id
	       Gid:		  user's login group id
	       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.
       Routines 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 upon login.  Since this system supports multiple groups (see  groups(1))  this
       field currently 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 charac-
       ters are sufficient), day is the day of the month, and year is the year.

       The class field is currently unused.  In the near future it will be a key to a termcap(5) style database of user attributes.

       The user's home directory is the full UNIX path name where the user will be placed on 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 must select an approved shell from the list in /etc/shells.

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

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

       Once  the  information has been verified, chpass uses mkpasswd(8) to update the user database.  This is run in the background, and, at very
       large sites could take several minutes.	Until this update is completed, the password file is unavailable for other  updates  and  the  new
       information will not be available to programs.

FILES

       /etc/master.passwd	The user database /etc/shells		   The list of approved shells

SEE ALSO

       login(1), finger(1), getusershell(3), passwd(5), mkpasswd(8), vipw(8)
       Robert Morris and Ken Thompson, UNIX password security

BUGS

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

4th Berkeley Distribution					  March 12, 1989							 CHPASS(1)