'\" t
.\"     Title: passwd
.\"    Author: Julianne Frances Haugh
.\" Generator: DocBook XSL Stylesheets vsnapshot <http://docbook.sf.net/>
.\"      Date: 01/22/2022
.\"    Manual: User Commands
.\"    Source: shadow-utils 4.11.1
.\"  Language: English
.\"
.TH "PASSWD" "1" "01/22/2022" "shadow\-utils 4\&.11\&.1" "User Commands"
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.SH "NAME"
passwd \- change user password
.SH "SYNOPSIS"
.HP \w'\fBpasswd\fR\ 'u
\fBpasswd\fR [\fIoptions\fR] [\fILOGIN\fR]
.SH "DESCRIPTION"
.PP
The
\fBpasswd\fR
command changes passwords for user accounts\&. A normal user may only change the password for their own account, while the superuser may change the password for any account\&.
\fBpasswd\fR
also changes the account or associated password validity period\&.
.SS "Password Changes"
.PP
The user is first prompted for their old password, if one is present\&. This password is then encrypted and compared against the stored password\&. The user has only one chance to enter the correct password\&. The superuser is permitted to bypass this step so that forgotten passwords may be changed\&.
.PP
After the password has been entered, password aging information is checked to see if the user is permitted to change the password at this time\&. If not,
\fBpasswd\fR
refuses to change the password and exits\&.
.PP
The user is then prompted twice for a replacement password\&. The second entry is compared against the first and both are required to match in order for the password to be changed\&.
.PP
Then, the password is tested for complexity\&. As a general guideline, passwords should consist of 6 to 8 characters including one or more characters from each of the following sets:
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
lower case alphabetics
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
digits 0 thru 9
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
punctuation marks
.RE
.PP
Care must be taken not to include the system default erase or kill characters\&.
\fBpasswd\fR
will reject any password which is not suitably complex\&.
.SS "Hints for user passwords"
.PP
The security of a password depends upon the strength of the encryption algorithm and the size of the key space\&. The legacy
\fIUNIX\fR
System encryption method is based on the NBS DES algorithm\&. More recent methods are now recommended (see
\fBENCRYPT_METHOD\fR)\&. The size of the key space depends upon the randomness of the password which is selected\&.
.PP
Compromises in password security normally result from careless password selection or handling\&. For this reason, you should not select a password which appears in a dictionary or which must be written down\&. The password should also not be a proper name, your license number, birth date, or street address\&. Any of these may be used as guesses to violate system security\&.
.PP
You can find advice on how to choose a strong password on http://en\&.wikipedia\&.org/wiki/Password_strength
.SH "OPTIONS"
.PP
The options which apply to the
\fBpasswd\fR
command are:
.PP
\fB\-a\fR, \fB\-\-all\fR
.RS 4
This option can be used only with
\fB\-S\fR
and causes show status for all users\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-d\fR, \fB\-\-delete\fR
.RS 4
Delete a user\*(Aqs password (make it empty)\&. This is a quick way to disable a password for an account\&. It will set the named account passwordless\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-e\fR, \fB\-\-expire\fR
.RS 4
Immediately expire an account\*(Aqs password\&. This in effect can force a user to change their password at the user\*(Aqs next login\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-h\fR, \fB\-\-help\fR
.RS 4
Display help message and exit\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-i\fR, \fB\-\-inactive\fR\ \&\fIINACTIVE\fR
.RS 4
This option is used to disable an account after the password has been expired for a number of days\&. After a user account has had an expired password for
\fIINACTIVE\fR
days, the user may no longer sign on to the account\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-k\fR, \fB\-\-keep\-tokens\fR
.RS 4
Indicate password change should be performed only for expired authentication tokens (passwords)\&. The user wishes to keep their non\-expired tokens as before\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-l\fR, \fB\-\-lock\fR
.RS 4
Lock the password of the named account\&. This option disables a password by changing it to a value which matches no possible encrypted value (it adds a \(aa!\(aa at the beginning of the password)\&.
.sp
Note that this does not disable the account\&. The user may still be able to login using another authentication token (e\&.g\&. an SSH key)\&. To disable the account, administrators should use
\fBusermod \-\-expiredate 1\fR
(this set the account\*(Aqs expire date to Jan 2, 1970)\&.
.sp
Users with a locked password are not allowed to change their password\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-n\fR, \fB\-\-mindays\fR\ \&\fIMIN_DAYS\fR
.RS 4
Set the minimum number of days between password changes to
\fIMIN_DAYS\fR\&. A value of zero for this field indicates that the user may change their password at any time\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-q\fR, \fB\-\-quiet\fR
.RS 4
Quiet mode\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-r\fR, \fB\-\-repository\fR\ \&\fIREPOSITORY\fR
.RS 4
change password in
\fIREPOSITORY\fR
repository
.RE
.PP
\fB\-R\fR, \fB\-\-root\fR\ \&\fICHROOT_DIR\fR
.RS 4
Apply changes in the
\fICHROOT_DIR\fR
directory and use the configuration files from the
\fICHROOT_DIR\fR
directory\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-S\fR, \fB\-\-status\fR
.RS 4
Display account status information\&. The status information consists of 7 fields\&. The first field is the user\*(Aqs login name\&. The second field indicates if the user account has a locked password (L), has no password (NP), or has a usable password (P)\&. The third field gives the date of the last password change\&. The next four fields are the minimum age, maximum age, warning period, and inactivity period for the password\&. These ages are expressed in days\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-u\fR, \fB\-\-unlock\fR
.RS 4
Unlock the password of the named account\&. This option re\-enables a password by changing the password back to its previous value (to the value before using the
\fB\-l\fR
option)\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-w\fR, \fB\-\-warndays\fR\ \&\fIWARN_DAYS\fR
.RS 4
Set the number of days of warning before a password change is required\&. The
\fIWARN_DAYS\fR
option is the number of days prior to the password expiring that a user will be warned that their password is about to expire\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-x\fR, \fB\-\-maxdays\fR\ \&\fIMAX_DAYS\fR
.RS 4
Set the maximum number of days a password remains valid\&. After
\fIMAX_DAYS\fR, the password is required to be changed\&.
.sp
Passing the number
\fI\-1\fR
as
\fIMAX_DAYS\fR
will remove checking a password\*(Aqs validity\&.
.RE
.SH "CAVEATS"
.PP
Password complexity checking may vary from site to site\&. The user is urged to select a password as complex as he or she feels comfortable with\&.
.PP
Users may not be able to change their password on a system if NIS is enabled and they are not logged into the NIS server\&.
.PP
\fBpasswd\fR
uses PAM to authenticate users and to change their passwords\&.
.SH "FILES"
.PP
/etc/passwd
.RS 4
User account information\&.
.RE
.PP
/etc/shadow
.RS 4
Secure user account information\&.
.RE
.PP
/etc/pam\&.d/passwd
.RS 4
PAM configuration for
\fBpasswd\fR\&.
.RE
.SH "EXIT VALUES"
.PP
The
\fBpasswd\fR
command exits with the following values:
.PP
\fI0\fR
.RS 4
success
.RE
.PP
\fI1\fR
.RS 4
permission denied
.RE
.PP
\fI2\fR
.RS 4
invalid combination of options
.RE
.PP
\fI3\fR
.RS 4
unexpected failure, nothing done
.RE
.PP
\fI4\fR
.RS 4
unexpected failure,
passwd
file missing
.RE
.PP
\fI5\fR
.RS 4
passwd
file busy, try again
.RE
.PP
\fI6\fR
.RS 4
invalid argument to option
.RE
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.PP
\fBchpasswd\fR(8),
\fBpasswd\fR(5),
\fBshadow\fR(5),
\fBusermod\fR(8)\&.