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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | CAVEATS | CONFIGURATION | FILES | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON |
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CHGPASSWD(8) System Management Commands CHGPASSWD(8)
chgpasswd - update group passwords in batch mode
chgpasswd [options]
The chgpasswd command reads a list of group name and password
pairs from standard input and uses this information to update a
set of existing groups. Each line is of the format:
group_name:password
By default the supplied password must be in clear-text, and is
encrypted by chgpasswd.
The default encryption algorithm can be defined for the system
with the ENCRYPT_METHOD variable of /etc/login.defs, and can be
overwritten with the -e, -m, or -c options.
This command is intended to be used in a large system environment
where many accounts are created at a single time.
The options which apply to the chgpasswd command are:
-c, --crypt-method
Use the specified method to encrypt the passwords.
The available methods are DES, MD5, SHA256, SHA512 and NONE
if your libc supports these methods.
-e, --encrypted
Supplied passwords are in encrypted form.
-h, --help
Display help message and exit.
-m, --md5
Use MD5 encryption instead of DES when the supplied passwords
are not encrypted.
-R, --root CHROOT_DIR
Apply changes in the CHROOT_DIR directory and use the
configuration files from the CHROOT_DIR directory. Only
absolute paths are supported.
-s, --sha-rounds
Use the specified number of rounds to encrypt the passwords.
You can only use this option with crypt method: SHA256 SHA512
By default, the number of rounds for SHA256 or SHA512 is
defined by the SHA_CRYPT_MIN_ROUNDS and SHA_CRYPT_MAX_ROUNDS
variables in /etc/login.defs.
A minimal value of 1000 and a maximal value of 999,999,999
will be enforced for SHA256 and SHA512. The default number of
rounds is 5000.
Remember to set permissions or umask to prevent readability of
unencrypted files by other users.
You should make sure the passwords and the encryption method
respect the system's password policy.
The following configuration variables in /etc/login.defs change
the behavior of this tool:
ENCRYPT_METHOD (string)
This defines the system default encryption algorithm for
encrypting passwords (if no algorithm are specified on the
command line).
It can take one of these values: DES (default), MD5, SHA256,
SHA512. MD5 and DES should not be used for new hashes, see
crypt(5) for recommendations.
Note: this parameter overrides the MD5_CRYPT_ENAB variable.
Note: This only affect the generation of group passwords. The
generation of user passwords is done by PAM and subject to
the PAM configuration. It is recommended to set this variable
consistently with the PAM configuration.
MAX_MEMBERS_PER_GROUP (number)
Maximum members per group entry. When the maximum is reached,
a new group entry (line) is started in /etc/group (with the
same name, same password, and same GID).
The default value is 0, meaning that there are no limits in
the number of members in a group.
This feature (split group) permits to limit the length of
lines in the group file. This is useful to make sure that
lines for NIS groups are not larger than 1024 characters.
If you need to enforce such limit, you can use 25.
Note: split groups may not be supported by all tools (even in
the Shadow toolsuite). You should not use this variable
unless you really need it.
MD5_CRYPT_ENAB (boolean)
Indicate if passwords must be encrypted using the MD5-based
algorithm. If set to yes, new passwords will be encrypted
using the MD5-based algorithm compatible with the one used by
recent releases of FreeBSD. It supports passwords of
unlimited length and longer salt strings. Set to no if you
need to copy encrypted passwords to other systems which don't
understand the new algorithm. Default is no.
This variable is superseded by the ENCRYPT_METHOD variable or
by any command line option used to configure the encryption
algorithm.
This variable is deprecated. You should use ENCRYPT_METHOD.
Note: This only affect the generation of group passwords. The
generation of user passwords is done by PAM and subject to
the PAM configuration. It is recommended to set this variable
consistently with the PAM configuration.
SHA_CRYPT_MIN_ROUNDS (number), SHA_CRYPT_MAX_ROUNDS (number)
When ENCRYPT_METHOD is set to SHA256 or SHA512, this defines
the number of SHA rounds used by the encryption algorithm by
default (when the number of rounds is not specified on the
command line).
With a lot of rounds, it is more difficult to brute force the
password. But note also that more CPU resources will be
needed to authenticate users.
If not specified, the libc will choose the default number of
rounds (5000), which is orders of magnitude too low for
modern hardware.
The values must be inside the 1000-999,999,999 range.
If only one of the SHA_CRYPT_MIN_ROUNDS or
SHA_CRYPT_MAX_ROUNDS values is set, then this value will be
used.
If SHA_CRYPT_MIN_ROUNDS > SHA_CRYPT_MAX_ROUNDS, the highest
value will be used.
Note: This only affect the generation of group passwords. The
generation of user passwords is done by PAM and subject to
the PAM configuration. It is recommended to set this variable
consistently with the PAM configuration.
/etc/group
Group account information.
/etc/gshadow
Secure group account information.
/etc/login.defs
Shadow password suite configuration.
gpasswd(1), groupadd(8), login.defs(5).
This page is part of the shadow-utils (utilities for managing
accounts and shadow password files) project. Information about
the project can be found at
⟨https://github.com/shadow-maint/shadow⟩. If you have a bug
report for this manual page, send it to
[email protected]. This page was obtained
from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://github.com/shadow-maint/shadow⟩ on 2024-06-15. (At that
time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
repository was 2024-06-13.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there
is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
[email protected]
shadow-utils 4.14.0 06/15/2024 CHGPASSWD(8)
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HTML rendering created 2024-06-26 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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