passwd(1)

change login password and password attributes

From the original Amiga UNIX 2.1 manual. Some things it mentions may not be in this release.

Also by this name: passwd(4), File formats and configuration files

NAME

passwd - change login password and password attributes

SYNOPSIS

passwd [ name ]

passwd [ -l | -d ] [ -f ] [ -n min ] [ -x max ] [ -w warn  ]
name

passwd -s [ -a ]

passwd -s [ name ]

DESCRIPTION

The passwd command changes the password or lists password attributes associated with the user's login name. Additionally, privileged-users may use passwd to install or change passwords and attributes associated with any login name. When used to change a password, passwd prompts ordinary users for their old password, if any. It then prompts for the new password twice. When the old password is entered, passwd checks to see if it has "aged" sufficiently. If "aging" is insufficient, passwd terminates; see shadow(4). Assuming aging is sufficient, a check is made to ensure that the new password meets construction requirements. When the new password is entered a second time, the two copies of the new password are compared. If the two copies are not identical the cycle of prompting for the new password is repeated for at most two more times. Passwords must be constructed to meet the following requirements:

     Each password must have at least six characters.   Only
     the first eight characters are significant.  PASSLEN is
     found in /etc/default/passwd and is  set  to  6.   Each
     password  must  contain at least two alphabetic charac-
     ters and at least one numeric or special character.  In
     this  case,  "alphabetic"  refers to all upper or lower
     case letters.   Each  password  must  differ  from  the
     user's  login name and any reverse or circular shift of
     that login name.  For  comparison  purposes,  an  upper
     case letter and its corresponding lower case letter are
     equivalent.  New passwords must differ from the old  by
     at least three characters.  For comparison purposes, an
     upper case letter  and  its  corresponding  lower  case
     letter are equivalent.
Super-users (e.g., real and effective uid equal to zero, see
id(1M)  and  su(1M))  may change any password; hence, passwd
does not  prompt  privileged-users  for  the  old  password.
Privileged-users  are  not  forced  to  comply with password
aging   and   password   construction    requirements.     A
privileged-user  can  create  a  null password by entering a
carriage  return  in  response  to  the  prompt  for  a  new
password.   (This  differs from passwd -d because the "pass-
word" prompt will still be displayed.)  Any user may use the
-s  option  to  show  password attributes for his or her own
login name.  The format of the display will be:
     name status mm/dd/yy min max warn
or, if password aging information is not present,
     name status
where

name The login ID of the user.

status The password status of name: "PS" stands for passworded or locked, "LK" stands for locked, and "NP" stands for no password.

mm/dd/yy The date password was last changed for name. (Note that all password aging dates are determined using Greenwich Mean Time and, therefore, may differ by as much as a day in other time zones.)

min The minimum number of days required between password changes for name. MINWEEKS is found in /etc/default/passwd and is set to NULL.

max The maximum number of days the password is valid for name. MAXWEEKS is found in /etc/default/passwd and is set to NULL.

warn The number of days relative to max before the password expires that the name will be warned. Only a privileged-user can use the following options:

-l Locks password entry for name.

-d Deletes password for name. The login name will not be prompted for password.

-n Set minimum field for name. The min field contains the minimum number of days between password changes for name. If min is greater than max, the user may not change the password. Always use this option with the -x option, unless max is set to -1 (aging turned off). In that case, min need not be set.

-x Set maximum field for name. The max field contains the number of days that the password is valid for name. The aging for name will be turned off immediately if max is set to -1. If it is set to 0, then the user is forced to change the password at the next login session and aging is turned off.

-w Set warn field for name. The warn field contains the number of days before the password expires that the user will be warned.

-a Show password attributes for all entries. Use only with -s option; name must not be provided.

-f Force the user to change password at the next login by expiring the password for name.

FILES

/etc/shadow, /etc/passwd, /etc/oshadow

DIAGNOSTICS

The passwd command exits with one of the following values: