CHPASS(1)

NAME
chpass, chfn, chsh, ypchpass, ypchfn, ypchsh - add or change user database information

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

DESCRIPTION
The chpass program 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.

-p  The super-user is allowed to directly supply an encrypted password field, in the format used by crypt(3), as an argument.

-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 altering 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.

NIS INTERACTION
Chpass can also be used in conjunction with NIS, however some restrictions apply. Currently, chpass can only make changes to the NIS passwd maps through yppasswdd(8), which only permits changes to a user's password, shell and gecos fields. It can not be used to change other user information or to add new records to the NIS passwd maps. (Doing that would require something such as ypupdated, which is not yet supported.) Furthermore, yppasswdd(8) requires password authentication before it will make any changes, even if it receives a request from the super-user.

As a result, the following restrictions apply when chpass is used with NIS:

1.  Only the shell and gecos information may be changed. All other fields are restricted, even when chpass is invoked by the super-user, because the yppasswdd(8) daemon has no support for updating them. While support for changing other fields could be added, this would lead to compatibility problems with other NIS-capable systems. Even though the super-user may supply data for other fields while editing an entry, the extra information (other than the password -- see below) will be silently discarded.

2.  Password authentication is required. Chpass will prompt for the user's NIS password before effecting any changes. If the password is invalid, all changes will be discarded.

3.  Adding new records to the local password database is discouraged. Chpass will allow the administrator to add new records to the local password database while NIS is enabled, but this can lead to some confusion since the new records are appended to the end of the master password file, usually after the special NIS '+' entries. The administrator should use vipw(8) to modify the local password file when NIS is running.

4.  Password changes are not permitted. Users should use passwd(1) or yppasswd(1) to change their NIS passwords. The super-user is allowed to specify a new password (even though the ``Password:'' field does not show up in the editor template, the super-user may add it back by hand), but even the super-user must supply the user's original password otherwise yppasswdd(8) will refuse to update the NIS maps.

There are also two extra option flags that are available when chpass is compiled with NIS support:

-l  The -l flag forces chpass to modify the local copy of a user's password information in the even that a user exists in both the local and NIS databases.

-y  This flag has the opposite effect of -l. This flag is largely redundant since chpass operates on NIS entries by default if NIS is enabled.

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, Ken Thompson, UNIX Password security.

NOTES
The chfn(1), chsh(1), ypchpass(1), ypchfn(1) and upchsh(1) commands are really only links to chpass.

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

HISTORY
The chpass, command appeared in 4.3BSD Reno.