chfn(1)

NAME

chfn − change user information in password file; used by finger

SYNOPSIS

chfn [login-name]

DESCRIPTION

The chfn command changes the user information that is stored in the /etc/passwd password file (see passwd(4)) for the current logged-in user or for the user specified by login-name.

The information is organized as four comma-separated subfields within the reserved (5th) field of the password file entry. It consists of the user’s full name, location code, office phone number, and home phone number, in that order. This information is used by the finger command and other programs (see finger(1)).

chfn prompts you for each subfield. The prompt includes a default value, which is enclosed in brackets. Accept the default value by pressing the Return key. To enter a blank subfield, type the word none.

Run finger after running chfn to make sure the information was processed correctly.

Subfield Values

Name Up to 1022 printing characters.

The finger command and other utilities expand an & found anywhere in this subfield by substituting the login name for it and shifting the first letter of the login name to uppercase. (chfn does not alter the input &.)

Location Up to 1022 printing characters.

Office Phone Up to 25 printing characters.

finger inserts appropriate hyphens if the value is all digits.

Home Phone Up to 25 printing characters.

finger inserts appropriate hyphens if the value is all digits.

You must have appropriate privileges to use the optional login-name argument to change another user’s information.

EXAMPLES

The following is a sample run. The user’s input is shown in regular type.

Name [Tracy Simmons]:
Location (Ex: 47U-P5) []: 42L-P1
Office Phone (Ex: 1632) [77777]: 71863
Home Phone (Ex: 9875432) [4085551546]: none

WARNINGS

The encoding of office and extension information is installation-dependent.

For historical reasons, the user’s name, etc., are stored in the /etc/passwd file. This is an inappropriate place to store the information.

Because two users may try to write the passwd file at once, a synchronization method was developed. On rare occasions, chfn prints a message that the password file is busy. When this occurs, chfn sleeps for a short time, then tries to write to the passwd file again.

DEPENDENCIES

HP-UX Integrated Login Library

chfn can use the HP-UX Integrated Login Library, if it is configured. For further details, see auth(5) and auth.adm(1m).

The HP-UX Integrated Login typically uses the Distributed Computing Environment (DCE) for its user registry. The DCE user registry and its relationship to the HP-UX Integrated Login are described in auth.dce(5).

AUTHOR

chfn was developed by the University of California, Berkeley.

FILES

/etc/passwd
/etc/ptmp

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