osx man page for passwd

PASSWD(1)						    BSD General Commands Manual 						 PASSWD(1)

NAME
     passwd -- modify a user's password

SYNOPSIS
     passwd [-i infosystem [-l location]] [-u authname] [user]

DESCRIPTION
     The passwd utility changes the user's password.  If the user is not the super-user, passwd first prompts for the current password and will
     not continue unless the correct password is entered.

     When entering the new password, the characters entered do not echo, in order to avoid the password being seen by a passer-by.  The passwd
     utility prompts for the new password twice in order to detect typing errors.

     The new password should be at least six characters long and not purely alphabetic.  Its total length should be less than _PASSWORD_LEN (cur-
     rently 128 characters), although some directory systems allow longer passwords.  Numbers, upper case letters, and meta characters are encour-
     aged.

     Once the password has been verified, passwd communicates the new password to the directory system.

     -i infosystem
	   This option specifies where the password update should be applied.  Under Mac OS X 10.5 and later, supported directory systems are:

	   PAM	 (default) Pluggable Authentication Modules.

	   opendirectory
		 A system conforming to Open Directory APIs and supporting updates (including LDAP, etc).  If no -l option is specified, the
		 search node is used.

	   file  The local flat-files (included for legacy configurations).

	   nis	 A remote NIS server containing the user's password.

     -l location
	   This option causes the password to be updated in the given location of the chosen directory system.

	   for file,
		 location may be a file name (/etc/master.passwd is the default)

	   for nis,
		 location may be a NIS domainname

	   for opendirectory,
		 location may be a directory node name

	   for PAM,
		 location is not used

     -u authname
	   This option specifies the user name to use when authenticating to the directory node.

     user  This optional argument specifies the user account whose password will be changed.  This account's current password may be required,
	   even when run as the super-user, depending on the directory system.

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), dscl(1), passwd(5), pwd_mkdb(8), vipw(8)

     Robert Morris and Ken Thompson, UNIX password security.

HISTORY
     A passwd command appeared in Version 6 AT&T UNIX.

Mac OS X							  August 18, 2008							  Mac OS X