passwd(1) [netbsd man page]
PASSWD(1) BSD General Commands Manual PASSWD(1) NAME
passwd -- modify a user's password SYNOPSIS
passwd [user] passwd [-d files | -l] [user] passwd [-d nis | -y] [user] passwd [-d krb5 | -k] [principal] DESCRIPTION
passwd changes the user's password. First, the user is prompted for their current password. If the current password is correctly typed, a new password is requested. The new password must be entered twice to avoid typing errors. The new password should be at least six characters long and not purely alphabetic. Its total length must be less than _PASSWORD_LEN (cur- rently 128 characters). Numbers, upper case letters and meta characters are encouraged. All options may not be available on all systems. -d database This option specifies the password database that should be updated. The following databases are supported: files This specifies that the password change should be applied to the local password file. When changing only the local password, passwd uses pwd_mkdb(8) to update the password databases. nis This specifies that the password change should be applied to the NIS password database. The rpc.yppasswdd(8) daemon should be running on the master NIS server. krb5 This specifies that the user's Kerberos 5 password should be changed. The host must be configured to use Kerberos. See krb5.conf(5). -l This is the equivalent of -d files. -y This is the equivalent of -d nis. -k This is the equivalent of -d krb5. If a password database is not specified, passwd will change the password database as determined by the Pluggable Authentication Module (PAM) library. The type of cipher used to encrypt the password depends on the configuration in passwd.conf(5). It can be different for local and NIS pass- words. FILES
/etc/master.passwd The user database /etc/passwd A Version 7 format password file /etc/passwd.XXXXXX Temporary copy of the password file SEE ALSO
chpass(1), login(1), pwhash(1), passwd(5), passwd.conf(5), pam(8), pwd_mkdb(8), vipw(8) Robert Morris and Ken Thompson, UNIX password security. HISTORY
A passwd command appeared in Version 6 AT&T UNIX. BSD
February 25, 2005 BSD
Check Out this Related Man Page
yppasswd(1) User Commands yppasswd(1) NAME
yppasswd - change your network password in the NIS database SYNOPSIS
yppasswd [username] DESCRIPTION
The yppasswd utility changes the network password associated with the user username in the Network Information Service (NIS) database. If the user has done a keylogin(1), and a publickey/secretkey pair exists for the user in the NIS publickey.byname map, yppasswd also re- encrypts the secretkey with the new password. The NIS password may be different from the local one on your own machine. yppasswd prompts for the old NIS password, and then for the new one. You must type in the old password correctly for the change to take effect. The new password must be typed twice, to forestall mistakes. New passwords must be at least four characters long, if they use a sufficiently rich alphabet, and at least six characters long if mono- case. These rules are relaxed if you are insistent enough. Only the owner of the name or the super-user may change a password; superuser on the root master will not be prompted for the old password, and does not need to follow password construction requirements. The NIS password daemon, rpc.yppasswdd must be running on your NIS server in order for the new password to take effect. ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes: +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ | ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ |Availability |SUNWnisu | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ SEE ALSO
keylogin(1), login(1), nis+(1), nispasswd(1), passwd(1), getpwnam(3C), getspnam(3C), secure_rpc(3NSL), nsswitch.conf(4), attributes(5) WARNINGS
Even after the user has successfully changed his or her password using this command, the subsequent login(1) using the new password will be successful only if the user's password and shadow information is obtained from NIS. See getpwnam(3C), getspnam(3C), and nsswitch.conf(4). NOTES
The use of yppasswd is discouraged, as it is now only a wrapper around the passwd(1) command, which should be used instead. Using passwd(1) with the -r nis option (see nis+(1)) will achieve the same results, and will be consistent across all the different name services avail- able. BUGS
The update protocol passes all the information to the server in one RPC call, without ever looking at it. Thus, if you type your old pass- word incorrectly, you will not be notified until after you have entered your new password. SunOS 5.10 28 Nov 2001 yppasswd(1)