passwd(1) [osx man page]

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

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)