PASSWD(1) BSD General Commands Manual PASSWD(1)NAMEpasswd — modify a user's password
SYNOPSISpasswd [-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 util‐
ity 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 ALSOchpass(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
