Man Chfn en anglais
CHFN(1)                          User Commands                         CHFN(1)



 

NAME


       chfn - change real user name and information

 

SYNOPSIS


       chfn [-f full_name] [-r room_no] [-w work_ph] [-h home_ph] [-o other]
            [user]

 

DESCRIPTION






       The chfn command changes user fullname, office number, office
       extension, and home phone number information for a user's account. This
       information is typically printed by finger(1) and similar programs. A
       normal user may only change the fields for her own account, subject to
       the restrictions in /etc/login.defs. (The default configuration is to
       prevent users from changing their fullname.) The superuser may change
       any field for any account. Additionally, only the superuser may use the
       -o option to change the undefined portions of the GECOS field.

       The only restriction placed on the contents of the fields is that no
       control characters may be present, nor any of comma, colon, or equal
       sign. The other field does not have this restriction, and is used to
       store accounting information used by other applications.

       If none of the options are selected, chfn operates in an interactive
       fashion, 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. The current value is displayed between
       a pair of [ ] marks. Without options, chfn prompts for the current user
       account.

 

CONFIGURATION


       The following configuration variables in /etc/login.defs change the
       behavior of this tool:

       CHFN_RESTRICT (string)
           This parameter specifies which values in the gecos field of the
           /etc/passwd file may be changed by regular users using the chfn
           program. It can be any combination of letters f, r, w, h, for Full
           name, Room number, Work phone, and Home phone, respectively. For
           backward compatibility, yes is equivalent to rwh and no is
           equivalent to frwh. If not specified, only the superuser can make
           any changes. The most restrictive setting is better achieved by not
           installing chfn SUID.

 

FILES


       /etc/login.defs
           Shadow password suite configuration.

       /etc/passwd
           User account information.

 

SEE ALSO


       chsh(1), login.defs(5), passwd(5).



User Commands                     12/06/2009                           CHFN(1)