YPPASSWD(1)

NAME
yppasswd, ypchpass, ypchfn, ypchsh - modify a user's NIS password data

SYNOPSIS
yppasswd [-f] [-s] [user]
ypchpass [user]
ypchfn [user]
ypchsh [user]

DESCRIPTION
When distributing your users' passwords over NIS (a.k.a. YP), the standard passwd, chpass, chfn, and chsh utilities cannot be used anymore to let a user change her password, because they only modify the password file on the local host. They are usually replaced by their YP counterparts, yppasswd, ypchpass, ypchfn and ypchsh.

These commands are in fact the very same program, linked to different names. Using the command line switches, you can choose whether to update your password, your login shell (-s), or your GECOS field information (-f), or a combination of them. chfn and yppasswd -f are equivalent, as are chsh and yppasswd -s.

When invoked without the user argument, the account information for the invoking user will be updated, otherwise that of user will be updated. This option is only available to the superuser.

All tools will first prompt the user for the current NIS password needed for authentication with the yppasswdd daemon. Subsequently, the program prompts for the updated information:

Change the user's NIS password. The user is prompted for the new password. While typing the password, echoing is turned off, so the password does not appear on the screen. An empty password is rejected, as are passwords shorter than six characters. The user will then be requested to retype the password to make sure it wasn't misspelled the first time.

Change the user's login shell. The user is prompted for a new shell, offering the old one as default:

Login shell [/bin/bash]: _

To accept the default, simply press return. To clear the shell field in your passwd file entry (so that the system's default shell is selected), enter the string none.

Change the user's full name and related information. Traditionally, some applications expect the GECOS field (field 4) of the passwd file to contain the user's real name (as opposed to the login name) plus some additional information like the office phone number. This information is displayed by finger(1) and probably some other tools, too.

When setting the full name, ypchfn displays the following prompts, with the defaults in brackets:

Name [Joe Doe]:
Location [2nd floor, bldg 34]:
Office Phone [12345]:
Home Phone []:

To accept a default, simply press return. To clear a field, enter the string none.

LICENSE
This program is a heavily beefed-up version of Theo de Raadt's yppasswd client, which is covered by the BSD license. Therefore, the BSD license applies to this program as well.

SEE ALSO
finger(1), passwd(5), passwd(1), yppasswdd(8).

AUTHOR
Theo de Raadt <deraadt@fsa.ca> (original client)
Olaf Kirch <okir@monad.swb.de> (heavy modifications and manpages)
Bill Paul <wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu> (port to FreeBSD and merger with passwd(1)

NOTES
All these commands are really only symbolic links to passwd(1)