1 .\" $NetBSD: passwd.5,v 1.12.2.2 1999/12/17 23:14:50 he Exp $
3 .\" Copyright (c) 1988, 1991, 1993
4 .\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
5 .\" Portions Copyright (c) 1994, Jason Downs. All rights reserved.
7 .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
8 .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
10 .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
11 .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
12 .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
13 .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
14 .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
15 .\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
16 .\" must display the following acknowledgement:
17 .\" This product includes software developed by the University of
18 .\" California, Berkeley and its contributors.
19 .\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
20 .\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
21 .\" without specific prior written permission.
23 .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
24 .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
25 .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
26 .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
27 .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
28 .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
29 .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
30 .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
31 .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
32 .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
35 .\" From: @(#)passwd.5 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/5/93
44 .Nd format of the password file
48 files are the local source of password information.
49 They can be used in conjunction with the Hesiod domains
56 .Sq Li passwd.byname ,
58 .Sq Li master.passwd.byname ,
60 .Sq Li master.passwd.byuid ,
64 For consistency, none of these files should ever be modified
69 file is readable only by root, and consists of newline separated
70 records, one per user, containing ten colon
74 These fields are as follows:
75 .Bl -tag -width ".Ar password" -offset indent
85 User's login group id.
91 Account expiration time.
93 General information about the user.
95 User's home directory.
102 file is generated from the
111 fields removed, and the
119 field is the login used to access the computer account, and the
121 field is the number associated with it.
122 They should both be unique
123 across the system (and often across a group of systems) since they
126 While it is possible to have multiple entries with identical login names
127 and/or identical user id's, it is usually a mistake to do so.
129 that manipulate these files will often return only one of the multiple
130 entries, and that one by random selection.
132 The login name must never begin with a hyphen
135 suggested that neither upper-case characters or dots
138 of the name, as this tends to confuse mailers.
139 No field may contain a
142 as this has been used historically to separate the fields
143 in the user database.
152 form of the password, see
156 field is empty, no password will be required to gain access to the
158 This is almost invariably a mistake, so authentication components
159 such as PAM can forcibly disallow remote access to passwordless accounts.
160 Because this file contains the encrypted user passwords, it should
161 not be readable by anyone without appropriate privileges.
166 password authentication is disabled for that account
167 (logins through other forms of
168 authentication, e.g., using
170 keys, will still work).
171 The field only contains encrypted passwords, and
173 can never be the result of encrypting a password.
175 An encrypted password prefixed by
177 means that the account is temporarily locked out
178 and no one can log into it using any authentication.
179 For a convenient command-line interface to account locking, see
184 field is the group that the user will be placed in upon login.
185 Since this system supports multiple groups (see
187 this field currently has little special meaning.
191 field is a key for a user's login class.
197 style database of user attributes, accounting, resource,
198 and environment settings.
202 field is the number of seconds from the epoch,
205 password for the account must be changed.
206 This field may be left empty to turn off the password aging feature.
210 field is the number of seconds from the epoch,
214 This field may be left empty to turn off the account aging feature.
218 field normally contains comma
220 separated subfields as follows:
222 .Bl -tag -width ".Ar office" -offset indent -compact
228 user's work phone number
230 user's home phone number
235 may contain a ampersand
237 which will be replaced by
238 the capitalized login
242 field is displayed or used
243 by various programs such as
250 and phone number subfields are used by the
252 program, and possibly other applications.
254 The user's home directory,
258 path name where the user
259 will be placed on login.
263 field is the command interpreter the user prefers.
264 If there is nothing in the
266 field, the Bourne shell
269 The conventional way to disable logging into an account once and for all,
270 as it is done for system accounts,
281 .Xr nsswitch.conf 5 ,
284 lookups occur from the
293 .Xr nsswitch.conf 5 ,
296 lookups occur from the
297 .Sq Li passwd.byname ,
298 .Sq Li passwd.byuid ,
299 .Sq Li master.passwd.byname ,
301 .Sq Li master.passwd.byuid
316 .Xr nsswitch.conf 5 ,
319 file also supports standard
320 .Sq Li + Ns / Ns Li -
321 exclusions and inclusions, based on user names and netgroups.
323 Lines beginning with a
325 (minus sign) are entries marked as being excluded
326 from any following inclusions, which are marked with a
330 If the second character of the line is a
332 (at sign), the operation
333 involves the user fields of all entries in the netgroup specified by the
334 remaining characters of the
337 Otherwise, the remainder of the
339 field is assumed to be a specific user name.
343 token may also be alone in the
345 field, which causes all users from either the Hesiod domain
348 .Sq Li passwd_compat: dns )
355 .Sq Li passwd_compat: nis )
358 If the entry contains non-empty
362 fields, the specified numbers will override the information retrieved
363 from the Hesiod domain or the
371 entries contain text, it will override the information included via
376 field may also be overridden.
378 .Bl -tag -width ".Pa /etc/master.passwd" -compact
381 password file, with passwords removed
384 password database, with passwords removed
385 .It Pa /etc/master.passwd
387 password file, with passwords intact
390 password database, with passwords intact
393 The password file format has changed since
395 The following awk script can be used to convert your old-style password
396 file into a new style password file.
397 The additional fields
402 are added, but are turned off by default.
403 Class is currently not implemented, but change and expire are; to set them,
404 use the current day in seconds from the epoch + whatever number of seconds
406 .Bd -literal -offset indent
408 { print $1 ":" $2 ":" $3 ":" $4 "::0:0:" $5 ":" $6 ":" $7 }
418 .Xr nsswitch.conf 5 ,
426 .%T "Managing NFS and NIS"
427 (O'Reilly & Associates)
431 file format appeared in
437 file format first appeared in SunOS.
439 The Hesiod support first appeared in
441 It was imported from the
443 Project, where it first appeared in
446 User information should (and eventually will) be stored elsewhere.
450 exclusions in the file after any inclusions will have