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passwd man page

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passwd(1)                                                            passwd(1)



NAME
       passwd - change user password

SYNOPSIS
       passwd [-f|-g|-s|-k[-q]] [name]
       passwd [-D binddn][-n min][-x max][-w warn][-i inact] account
       passwd [-D binddn] {-l|-u|-d|-S[-a]|-e} name
       passwd --bioapi [account]
       passwd --stdin [account]

DESCRIPTION
       passwd  changes passwords for user and group accounts.  While an admin-
       istrator may change the password for any account  or  group,  a  normal
       user  is  only  allowed  to  change the password for their own account.
       passwd also changes account information, such as the full name  of  the
       user, their login shell, password expiry dates and intervals or disable
       an account.

       passwd is written to work through the PAM API.   Essentially,  it  ini-
       tializes  itself  as  a "passwd" service and utilizes configured "pass-
       word" modules to authenticate and then update a user's password.

       A sample /etc/pam.d/passwd file might look like this:

              #%PAM-1.0
              auth      required  pam_unix2.so    nullok
              account   required  pam_unix2.so
              password  required  pam_pwcheck.so  nullok
              password  required  pam_unix2.so    nullok \
                                    use_first_pass use_authtok
              session   required  pam_unix2.so


   Password Changes
       If an old password is present, the user is first promted for it and the
       password  is  compared  agaisnt  the  stored  one. This can be changed,
       depending which PAM modules are used.  An administrator is permitted to
       bypass this step so that forgotten passwords may be changed.

       After the user is authenticated, password aging information are checked
       to see if the user is permitted to change their password at this  time.
       Else passwd refuses to change the password.

       The  user  is  then  prompted for a replacement password.  Care must be
       taken to not include special control characters  or  characters,  which
       are not available on all keyboards.

       If  the  password is accepted, passwd will prompt again and compare the
       second entry against the first.  Both entries are require to  match  in
       order for the password to be changed.

OPTIONS
       -f     Change  the finger (gecos) information. This are the users full-
              name, office room number, office phone  number  and  home  phone
              number.  This  information is stored in the /etc/passwd file and
              typically printed by finger(1) and similiar programs.

       -g     With this option, the password  for  the  named  group  will  be
              changed.

       -s     This  option  is  used  to change the user login shell. A normal
              user may only change the login shell for their own account,  the
              super user may change the login shell for any account.

       -k     Keep  non-expired  authentication tokens. The password will only
              be changed if it is expired.

       -q     Try to be quiet. This option can only be used with -k.


   Password expiry information
       -n min With this option the minimum number  of  days  between  password
              changes  is  changed.  A  value of zero for this field indicates
              that the user may change her password at any time. Else the user
              will not be permitted to change the password until min days have
              elapsed.

       -x max With this option the maximum number of days during which a pass-
              word is valid is changed. When maxdays plus lastday is less than
              the current day, the user will be required to change  his  pass-
              word before being able to use the account.

       -w warn
              With this option the number of days of warning before a password
              change is required can be changed. This option is the number  of
              days  prior  to the password expiring that a user will be warned
              the password is about to expire.

       -i inact
              This option is used to set the  number  of  days  of  inactivity
              after  a  password  has  expired before the account is locked. A
              user whose account is locked must contact the  system   adminis-
              trator  before  being able to use the account again.  A value of
              -1 disables this feature.


   Account maintenance
       -l     A system administrator can lock the  account  of  the  specified
              user.

       -u     A  system administrator can unlock the specified account, if the
              account is not passwordless afterwards (it will  not  unlock  an
              account that has only  "!" as a password).

       -d     The  password  of the given account can be deleted by the system
              administrator. If the BioAPI interface is used the  BioAPI  data
              for that account is removed.

       -S     Report  password  status  on  the  named account. The first part
              indicates if the user account is locked (LK),  has  no  password
              (NP),  or  has  an  existing or locked password (PS). The second
              part gives the date of the last password change. The next  parts
              are the minimum age, maximum age, warning period, and inactivity
              period for the password.

       -a     Report the password status for all accounts. Can only be used in
              conjunction with -S.

       -e     The user will be forced to change the password at next login.

       -P path
              Search  passwd  and  shadow  file in path. This option cannot be
              used with changing passwords.

       --bioapi
              This option is used to  indicate  that  passwd  should  use  the
              BioAPI  for  managing the authentication token of an account. It
              is only supported with a small subset  of  other  options.  This
              option is not always available.

       --stdin
              This  option is used to indicate that passwd should read the new
              password from standard input, which can be a  pipe  (only  by  a
              system administrator).

   Name service switch options
       -D binddn
              Use the Distinguished Name binddn to bind to the LDAP directory.

FILES
       passwd - user account information
       shadow - shadow user account information

SEE ALSO
       passwd(1), group(5), passwd(5), shadow(5), pam(5)

AUTHOR
       Thorsten Kukuk <kukuk@suse.de>



pwdutils                         November 2005                       passwd(1)


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