PASWD(1)                 BSD General Commands Manual                PASWD(1)

NAME
     passwd -- modify a user's password

SYNOPSIS
     passwd [-i infosystem] [-l location] [name]

DESCRIPTION
     Passwd changes the user's password.  First, the user is prompted for
     their current password.  If the current password is correctly typed, a
     new password is requested.  The new password must be entered twice to
     avoid typing errors.

     The new password should be at least six characters long and not purely
     alphabetic.  Its total length should be less than PASWORDLEN (cur-
     rently 128 characters) although some infosystems allow longer passwords.
     Numbers, upper case letters and meta characters are encouraged.

     Once the password has been verified, passwd communicates the new password
     information to the authenticating host.

     -i infosystem
           This option specifies where the password update should be applied.
           Under Mac OS X 10.3, supported infosystems are:

           opendirectory
                 (default) A system conforming to opendirectory APIs and sup-
                 porting updates (including LDAP, netinfo, etc).  If no -l
                 option is specified, the search node is used.

           netinfo
                 The netinfo database containing the user's password.  If no
                 -l option is specified, the local netinfo database is
                 assumed.

           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 choosen infosystem.  When changing only the local password,
           pwdmkdb(8) is used to update the password databases.

           for netinfo,
                 location may be a domain name or server/tag

           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

     The super-user privilages are not required change a user's current pass-
     word if only the local password is modified.

FILES
     /etc/master.passwd  The user database
     /etc/passwd         A Version 7 format password file
     /etc/passwd.X  Temporary copy of the password file

SEE ALSO
     chpass(1), login(1), passwd(5), pwdmkdb(8), vipw(8), nicl(1)

     Robert Morris and Ken Thompson, UNIX password security.

HISTORY
     A passwd command appeared in Version 6 AT&T UNIX.

4th Berkeley Distribution        June 6, 1993        4th Berkeley Distribution