VIPW(8) | System Manager's Manual | VIPW(8) |
vipw
— edit the
password file
vipw |
vipw
edits the password file after setting
the appropriate locks, and does any necessary processing after the password
file is unlocked. If the password file is already locked for editing by
another user, vipw
will ask you to try again later.
The default editor for vipw
is
vi(1).
vipw
performs a number of consistency
checks on the password entries, and will not allow a password file with a
“mangled” entry to be installed. If
vipw
rejects the new password file, the user is
prompted to re-enter the edit session.
Once the information has been verified,
vipw
uses
pwd_mkdb(8) to update the user
database. This is run in the background and, at very large sites, could take
several minutes. Until this update is completed, the password file is
unavailable for other updates and the new information is not available to
programs.
Which type of cipher is used to encrypt the password information depends on the configuration in login.conf(5).
If the following environment variable exists, it will be utilized
by vipw
:
chpass(1), passwd(1), login.conf(5), passwd(5), adduser(8), pwd_mkdb(8)
The vipw
command appeared in
4.0BSD.
November 1, 2020 | OpenBSD-current |