chfn(1)

NAME

chfn − change finger entry

SYNOPSIS

chfn [loginname]

DESCRIPTION

chfn is used to change information about users. The information consists of the user’s “real life” name, location, office phone number, and home phone number, and is used by finger(1) and other programs. chfn prompts the user for each field. Included in the prompt is a default value, which is enclosed in brackets. The default value is accepted simply by typing <return>. To enter a blank field, type the word none. Below is a sample run:

Name [Tracy Simmons]:
Location (Ex: 47U-P5) []: 42L-P1
Office Phone (Ex: 1632) []: 1863
Home Phone (Ex: 9875432) [5551546]: none

chfn allows phone numbers to be entered with or without hyphens.

Run finger(1) after running chfn to make sure the information was processed correctly.

The optional argument loginname is used to change another person’s finger(1) information. This can only be done by users with appropriate privileges.

WARNINGS

Encoding of office and extension information is installation dependent.

For historical reasons, the user’s name, etc., are stored in the 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.

AUTHOR

chfn was developed by the University of California, Berkeley.

FILES

/etc/passwd
/etc/ptmp

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