Linux in a Nutshell, Fourth Edition

Name

chage

Synopsis

                  chage [options] user
               

Change information about user password expirations. If run without any option flags, chage will prompt for values to be entered; you may also use option flags to change or view information.

Options

-l

This flag is used without any others, and causes chage to display the current password expiration attributes for the user.

-m mindays

Minimum number of days between password changes. Default is zero, meaning that the user may change the password at any time.

-M maxdays

Maximum number of days between password changes.

-d lastday

Date of last password change. This may be expressed as a date in YYYY-MM-DD format, or as the number of days between January 1, 1970 and the last password change.

-I inactive-days

If a password expires and the user does not log in for this number of days, the account will be locked, and the user must contact a system administrator before logging in. Set to 0 to disable the feature.

-E expiredate

Set the date when the account will be locked. This is not a date for password expiration, but for account expiration. It may be expressed as a YYYY-MM-DD date or as a number of days since January 1, 1970.

-W warning

The number of days before password expiration that a user will be warned to change passwords.