Linux in a Nutshell, 6th Edition

Name

chage

Synopsis

chage [options] user

Change information about user password expirations. If run with no option flags, chage prompts for values to be entered; you may also use option flags to change or view information. Requires a shadow password file. An unprivileged user can only run chage with the -l option.

Options

-d lastday, --lastday=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.

-E expiredate, --expiredate=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 in YYYY-MM-DD format or as a number of days since January 1, 1970.

-I inactivedays, --inactive=inactivedays

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.

-l, --list

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

-m mindays, --mindays=mindays

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

-M maxdays, --maxdays=maxdays

Maximum number of days between password changes.

-W warndays, --warndays=warndays

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