SYNOPSIS

       chage [-P path] [-m mindays] [-M maxdays]
            [-d  lastday] [-I inactive] [-E expiredate] [-W warn­
            days] user

       chage -l [user]


DESCRIPTION

       chage is used to  list  and  change  the  password  expiry
       information  of a user. It allows the system administrator
       to change the number of days between allowed and  required
       password changes and the date of the last password change.
       It allows also to define when an account will expire.  The
       chage  command  is restricted to the system administrator,
       except for the -l option, which may be used by an user  to
       determine when his password or account is due to expire.

       If  no  option  is given, chage operates in an interactive
       mode, prompting the user with the current values  for  all
       of the fields. Enter the new value to change the field, or
       leave the line blank to use the  current value.


OPTIONS

       -P, --path path
              The passwd and shadow files are located  under  the
              specified  directory  path.  chage  will  use  this
              files, not /etc/passwd and  /etc/shadow.   This  is
              useful for example on NIS master servers, where you
              do not want to give all users in the  NIS  database
              automatic access to your NIS server and the NIS map
              is build from special files.

       -l, --list
              This option will list the password expiry  informa­
              tion  in a human readable format. The user will see
              the date when he  changed  the  password  the  last
              time,  when  the  password will be expire, when the
              password will be locked and when the  account  will
              expire.

       -m, --mindays mindays
              With this option the minimum number of days between
              password changes is changed. A value  of  zero  for
              this  field  indicates that the user may change her
              password at any time. Else the  user  will  not  be
              permitted  to  change  the  password until min days
              have elapsed.

       -M, --maxdays maxdays
              With this option the maximum number of days  during
              which  a password is valid is changed. When maxdays
              plus lastday is less than the current day, the user
              expired can be changed. expiredate has to be speci­
              fied as number of days since January 1st, 1970. The
              date  may  also be expressed in the format YYYY-MM-
              DD.

       -I, --inactive inactive
              This option is used to set the number  of  days  of
              inactivity  after a password has expired before the
              account is locked. A user whose account  is  locked
              must contact the system  administrator before being
              able to use the account again.  A value of  0  dis­
              ables this feature.

       -W, --warndays warndays
              With  this  option  the  number  of days of warning
              before  a  password  change  is  required  can   be
              changed. This option is the number of days prior to
              the password expiring that a user  will  be  warned
              the password is about to expire.


BUGS

       chage is not able yet to change the password expiry infor­
       mations in a LDAP server.


FILES

       passwd - user account information
       shadow - shadow user account information


SEE ALSO

       passwd(1), passwd(5)


AUTHOR

       Thorsten Kukuk <kukuk@suse.de>



pwdutils                   January 2003                  chage(1)

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