Change the login password or create new user names (UNIX)
passwd [-delSu] [-i inactive] [-n mindays][-w warndays] [-x maxdays] [username]
QNX Neutrino
You can use the passwd utility to change your login password, and if you're logged in as the superuser (root), you can create a new user account.
If you're changing your password, passwd prompts for the old password and then for the new password. The new password must be entered twice, to avoid typing mistakes. Only the owner or the superuser may change a password.
To create a new user account, type:
passwd new_user_name
When creating a new user account, passwd prompts for information, such as the user's group list, home directory, and shell. The /etc/default/passwd file (see Files, below) specifies the default values for these prompts. You can edit this file to modify passwd's behavior to suit local requirements.
Entries in this file appear in the following format:
groupname:x:groupid:user[,user]...
The x represents the group password; QNX Neutrino doesn't support group passwords.
For more information, see /etc/group in the QNX Neutrino User's Guide.
username:has_passwd:userid:groupid:misc:home_directory:initial_command
For more information, see /etc/passwd in the QNX Neutrino User's Guide.
For more information, see /etc/shadow in the QNX Neutrino User's Guide.
Setting | Default | Description |
---|---|---|
BASEDIR=dirname | /home | The base directory under which user directories are created. |
SHELL=progname | /bin/sh | The shell to use for the login shell field in new password entries. |
UIDRANGE=low-[high] | 100- | The valid range of values for new user IDs. You can omit the high component, indicating no upper bound, but you still need the dash. |
GIDRANGE=low-[high] | 100- | The valid range of values for group IDs. As with UIDRANGE, you can omit the high component if there's no upper bound. |
DUPDIROK | Not set | If specified, passwd lets you select an existing directory as a new user's home directory. |
DUPUIDOK | Not set | If specified, passwd lets you select an existing user ID for a new username. This is generally discouraged, because it allows many usernames to be mapped to one user ID. |
NOPASSWORDOK | NOPASSWORDOK | If specified, passwd lets you set up user accounts that don't require a password to log in. |
STRICTPASSWORD | Not set | If specified, passwd requires all passwords to contain at least two types of characters (e.g., alphabetic and punctuation). |
INSISTANT=retries | 6 | The number of times passwd asks non-root users if they really want to set up their account with no password. This variable is ignored if NOPASSWORDOK is set. |
PROFILE=basename | .profile | The name to use for the shell's initialization file in the user's home directory. The file specified by DEFPROFILE (below) is copied there when you set up a new account. |
DEFPROFILE=filename | /etc/skel/.profile | The path to a default shell-initialization file that's copied to a new user's PROFILE when you set up the account. |
QNXCRYPT | Not set | If this is set, passwd uses the old QNX 4 encryption method, instead of the default UNIX encryption method. |
The passwd utility creates the /etc/.pwlock file during updates to the password database. If for some reason the system crashes at an inopportune moment and leaves this file present, passwd refuses to work until the file is removed by the system administrator. If the password files are somehow left in an inconsistent state as a result of the crash, the system administrator should also copy /etc/oshadow to /etc/shadow and copy /etc/opasswd to /etc/passwd.