vipw(8) [freebsd man page]

VIPW(8) 						    BSD System Manager's Manual 						   VIPW(8)

NAME

     vipw -- edit the password file

SYNOPSIS

     vipw [-d directory]

DESCRIPTION

     The vipw utility edits the password file after setting the appropriate locks, and does any necessary processing after the password file is
     unlocked.	If the password file is already locked for editing by another user, vipw will ask you to try again later.  The default editor for
     vipw is vi(1).

     When run without options, vipw will work with the password files in /etc.	The -d option may be used to specify an alternative directory to
     work with.

     The vipw utility performs a number of consistency checks on the password entries, and will not allow a password file with a ``mangled'' entry
     to be installed.  If vipw rejects the new password file, the user is prompted to re-enter the edit session.

     Once the information has been verified, vipw uses pwd_mkdb(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
     is not available to programs.

ENVIRONMENT

     If the following environment variable exists it will be utilized by vipw:

     EDITOR	      The editor specified by the string EDITOR will be invoked instead of the default editor vi(1).  This can be used to allow a
		      script to non-interactively modify the password file.

     PW_SCAN_BIG_IDS  See pwd_mkdb(8).

SEE ALSO

     chpass(1), passwd(1), passwd(5), adduser(8), pw(8), pwd_mkdb(8)

HISTORY

     The vipw utility appeared in 4.0BSD.

BUGS

     The mechanism for checking for password file modifications requires that the modification time of the password file changes.  This means that
     in a default configuration where file system timestamps are not calculated with sub-second precision, EDITOR has to run for at least one sec-
     ond.  Non-interactive editor scripts should invoke sleep(1) or equivalent to ensure this happens.

BSD
								 February 14, 2012							       BSD

mkpasswd(8)						      System Manager's Manual						       mkpasswd(8)

NAME

       mkpasswd - Creates a version of the basic user database organized for efficient searches

SYNOPSIS

       /usr/sbin/mkpasswd [-v] [-s size] passwdfile

DESCRIPTION

       The  mkpasswd  command  creates	an auxiliary version of the basic user database in a form organized for efficient searches by the getpwuid
       subroutine and the getpwnam subroutine.	The mkpasswd command reads the user attributes in the /etc/passwd file and creates a hashed  pass-
       word database in the /etc/passwd.dir and /etc/passwd.pag files (see ndbm(3) reference page).

       If  you specify a file other than /etc/passwd, the command reads the user attributes in that file and creates a hashed password database in
       the passwdfile.dir and passwdfile.pag files. It is important to know that the password file you designate must be in password  file  format
       (see the passwd(4) reference page).

       Note  that if you use the vipw command to edit a password file, you do not need to use the mkpasswd command.  This is because the vipw com-
       mand automatically invokes the mkpasswd command which in turn creates the /etc/passwd.dir and /etc/passwd.pag files.

       Only the root user should have execute access to the mkpasswd command.

       Files accessed: File /etc/passwd /etc/passwd.pag /etc/passwd.dir passwdfile passwdfile.pag passwdfile.dir

       The mkpasswd command may fail with a errno value of EFBIG if the password file is large (30,000 entries or  more).   This  failure  can	be
       avoided by using the -s option to set a larger page block size for the hashed database.

FLAGS

       Specifies  that	each  stored entry be listed on standard output Specifies the page block size to use in creating the hashed password data-
       base.  The size argument is a value from 1 to 32, representing page block sizes from 1024 to 32768, respectively.  The default  page  block
       size is 1024.

EXAMPLES

       If  you have not used vipw to edit the /etc/passwd and wish to generate a hashed password database, enter the following: /usr/sbin/mkpasswd
       -v /etc/passwd An auxiliary version of the basic user database (/etc/passwd.dir and /etc/passwd.pag files) is created with a hashing  algo-
       rithm.

       To create a hashed password database with a page block size of 8192, enter the following: /usr/sbin/makepasswd -s 8 /etc/passwd

SECURITY NOTE

       If  enhanced  security is running on your system, the passwords are stored in the extended attributes database.	See the Security guide for
       more information about passwords in the enhanced security environment.

RETURN VALUES

       The mkpasswd command exits with a nonzero exit code if any errors are detected.

ERRORS

       If the mkpasswd request is not successful, the following error message is displayed: The passwdfile.dir and  passwdfile.pag  files  already
       exist from a previous execution of the same mkpasswd command.

FILES

       Specifies the command path

RELATED INFORMATION

       Commands: adduser(8), passwd(1), passwd(4), vipw(8)

       Functions: getpwent(3), ndbm(3)

       Manuals: Security delim off

																       mkpasswd(8)