chpass man page on 4.4BSD

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CHPASS(1)		  BSD General Commands Manual		     CHPASS(1)

NAME
     chpass — add or change user database information

SYNOPSIS
     chpass [-a list] [-s newshell] [user]

DESCRIPTION
     Chpass allows editing of the user database information associated with
     user or, by default, the current user.  The information is formatted and
     supplied to an editor for changes.

     Only the information that the user is allowed to change is displayed.

     The options are as follows:

     -a	     The super-user is allowed to directly supply a user database
	     entry, in the format specified by passwd(5), as an argument.
	     This argument must be a colon (``:'') separated list of all the
	     user database fields, although they may be empty.

     -s	     The -s option attempts to change the user's shell to newshell.

     Possible display items are as follows:

	   Login:	    user's login name
	   Password:	    user's encrypted password
	   Uid:		    user's login
	   Gid:		    user's login group
	   Change:	    password change time
	   Expire:	    account expiration time
	   Class:	    user's general classification
	   Home Directory:  user's home directory
	   Shell:	    user's login shell
	   Full Name:	    user's real name
	   Location:	    user's normal location
	   Home Phone:	    user's home phone
	   Office Phone:    user's office phone

     The login field is the user name used to access the computer account.

     The password field contains the encrypted form of the user's password.

     The uid field is the number associated with the login field.  Both of
     these fields should be unique across the system (and often across a group
     of systems) as they control file access.

     While it is possible to have multiple entries with identical login names
     and/or identical user id's, it is usually a mistake to do so.  Routines
     that manipulate these files will often return only one of the multiple
     entries, and that one by random selection.

     The group field is the group that the user will be placed in at login.
     Since BSD supports multiple groups (see groups(1)) this field currently
     has little special meaning.  This field may be filled in with either a
     number or a group name (see group(5)).

     The change field is the date by which the password must be changed.

     The expire field is the date on which the account expires.

     Both the change and expire fields should be entered in the form ``month
     day year'' where month is the month name (the first three characters are
     sufficient), day is the day of the month, and year is the year.

     The class field is currently unused.  In the near future it will be a key
     to a termcap(5) style database of user attributes.

     The user's home directory is the full UNIX path name where the user will
     be placed at login.

     The shell field is the command interpreter the user prefers.  If the
     shell field is empty, the Bourne shell, /bin/sh, is assumed.  When alter‐
     ing a login shell, and not the super-user, the user may not change from a
     non-standard shell or to a non-standard shell.  Non-standard is defined
     as a shell not found in /etc/shells.

     The last four fields are for storing the user's full name, office
     location, and home and work telephone numbers.

     Once the information has been verified, chpass uses pwd_mkdb(8) to update
     the user database.

ENVIRONMENT
     The vi(1) editor will be used unless the environment variable EDITOR is
     set to an alternate editor.  When the editor terminates, the information
     is re-read and used to update the user database itself.  Only the user,
     or the super-user, may edit the information associated with the user.

FILES
     /etc/master.passwd	 The user database
     /etc/passwd	 A Version 7 format password file
     /etc/chpass.XXXXXX	 Temporary copy of the password file
     /etc/shells	 The list of approved shells

SEE ALSO
     login(1), finger(1), passwd(1), getusershell(3), passwd(5), pwd_mkdb(8),
     vipw(8)

     and Robert Morris and Ken Thompson, UNIX Password security.

BUGS
     User information should (and eventually will) be stored elsewhere.

HISTORY
     The chpass command appeared in 4.3BSD-Reno.

BSD			       December 30, 1993			   BSD
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