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

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PASSWD(5)						   File Formats and Conversions 						 PASSWD(5)

NAME

       passwd - the password file

DESCRIPTION

       /etc/passwd contains one line for each user account, with seven fields delimited by colons (":"). These fields are:

       o   login name

       o   optional encrypted password

       o   numerical user ID

       o   numerical group ID

       o   user name or comment field

       o   user home directory

       o   optional user command interpreter

       The encrypted password field may be blank, in which case no password is required to authenticate as the specified login name. However, some
       applications which read the /etc/passwd file may decide not to permit any access at all if the password field is blank. If the password
       field is a lower-case "x", then the encrypted password is actually stored in the shadow(5) file instead; there must be a corresponding line
       in the /etc/shadow file, or else the user account is invalid. If the password field is any other string, then it will be treated as an
       encrypted password, as specified by crypt(3).

       The comment field is used by various system utilities, such as finger(1).

       The home directory field provides the name of the initial working directory. The login program uses this information to set the value of
       the $HOME environmental variable.

       The command interpreter field provides the name of the user's command language interpreter, or the name of the initial program to execute.
       The login program uses this information to set the value of the $SHELL environmental variable. If this field is empty, it defaults to the
       value /bin/sh.

FILES

       /etc/passwd
	   User account information.

       /etc/shadow
	   optional encrypted password file

       /etc/passwd-
	   Backup file for /etc/passwd.

	   Note that this file is used by the tools of the shadow toolsuite, but not by all user and password management tools.

SEE ALSO

       crypt(3), getent(1), getpwnam(3), login(1), passwd(1), pwck(8), pwconv(8), pwunconv(8), shadow(5), su(1), sulogin(8).

shadow-utils 4.1.5.1						    05/25/2012								 PASSWD(5)

Linux and UNIX Man Pages

passwd(1) [osx man page]

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