usr.sbin/pw/pw.8

.\" Copyright (C) 1996
.\" David L. Nugent.  All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
.\" are met:
.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
.\"    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
.\"
.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY DAVID L. NUGENT AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
.\" ARE DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL DAVID L. NUGENT OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
.\" SUCH DAMAGE.
.\"
.Dd November 28, 2022
.Dt PW 8
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm pw
.Nd create, remove, modify & display system users and groups
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Op Fl R Ar rootdir
.Op Fl V Ar etcdir
.Cm useradd
.Oo Fl n Oc Ar name
.Op Fl mNoPq
.Op Fl C Ar config
.Op Fl c Ar comment
.Op Fl d Ar homedir
.Op Fl e Ar accexpdate
.Op Fl G Ar grouplist
.Op Fl g Ar group
.Op Fl H Ar fd
.Op Fl h Ar fd
.Op Fl k Ar skeldir
.Op Fl L Ar class
.Op Fl M Ar mode
.Op Fl p Ar passexpdate
.Op Fl s Ar shell
.Op Fl u Ar uid
.Op Fl w Ar passmethod
.Op Fl Y Op Fl y Ar nispasswd
.Nm
.Op Fl R Ar rootdir
.Op Fl V Ar etcdir
.Cm useradd
.Fl D
.Op Fl q
.Op Fl b Ar basehome
.Op Fl C Ar config
.Op Fl e Ar accexpdays
.Op Fl G Ar grouplist
.Op Fl g Ar group
.Op Fl i Ar mingid , Ns Ar maxgid
.Op Fl k Ar skeldir
.Op Fl M Ar mode
.Op Fl p Ar passexpdays
.Op Fl s Ar shell
.Op Fl u Ar minuid , Ns Ar maxuid
.Op Fl w Ar passmethod
.Op Fl Y Op Fl y Ar nispasswd
.Nm
.Op Fl R Ar rootdir
.Op Fl V Ar etcdir
.Cm userdel
.Oo Fl n Oc Ar name Ns | Ns Oo Fl u Oc Ar uid
.Op Fl r
.Op Fl Y Op Fl y Ar nispasswd
.Nm
.Op Fl R Ar rootdir
.Op Fl V Ar etcdir
.Cm usermod
.Oo Fl n Oc Ar name Ns | Ns Ar uid Oo Fl u Ar newuid Oc | Fl u Ar uid
.Op Fl mNPq
.Op Fl C Ar config
.Op Fl c Ar comment
.Op Fl d Ar homedir
.Op Fl e Ar accexpdate
.Op Fl k Ar skeldir
.Op Fl G Ar grouplist
.Op Fl g Ar group
.Op Fl H Ar fd
.Op Fl h Ar fd
.Op Fl L Ar class
.Op Fl l Ar newname
.Op Fl M Ar mode
.Op Fl p Ar passexpdate
.Op Fl s Ar shell
.Op Fl w Ar passmethod
.Op Fl Y Op Fl y Ar nispasswd
.Nm
.Op Fl R Ar rootdir
.Op Fl V Ar etcdir
.Cm usershow
.Oo Fl n Oc Ar name Ns | Ns Oo Fl u Oc Ar uid
.Op Fl 7aFP
.Nm
.Op Fl R Ar rootdir
.Op Fl V Ar etcdir
.Cm usernext
.Op Fl q
.Op Fl C Ar config
.Nm
.Op Fl R Ar rootdir
.Op Fl V Ar etcdir
.Cm groupadd
.Oo Fl n Oc Ar name
.Op Fl oNPqY
.Op Fl C Ar config
.Op Fl g Ar gid
.Op Fl H Ar fd
.Op Fl h Ar fd
.Op Fl M Ar members
.Nm
.Op Fl R Ar rootdir
.Op Fl V Ar etcdir
.Cm groupdel
.Oo Fl n Oc Ar name Ns | Ns Oo Fl g Oc Ar gid
.Op Fl Y
.Nm
.Op Fl R Ar rootdir
.Op Fl V Ar etcdir
.Cm groupmod
.Oo Fl n Oc Ar name Ns | Ns Ar gid Oo Fl g Ar newgid Oc | Fl g Ar gid
.Op Fl NPqY
.Op Fl C Ar config
.Op Fl d Ar oldmembers
.Op Fl H Ar fd
.Op Fl h Ar fd
.Op Fl l Ar newname
.Op Fl M Ar members
.Op Fl m Ar newmembers
.Nm
.Op Fl R Ar rootdir
.Op Fl V Ar etcdir
.Cm groupshow
.Oo Fl n Oc Ar name Ns | Ns Oo Fl g Oc Ar gid
.Op Fl aFP
.Nm
.Op Fl R Ar rootdir
.Op Fl V Ar etcdir
.Cm groupnext
.Op Fl C Ar config
.Op Fl q
.Nm
.Op Fl R Ar rootdir
.Op Fl V Ar etcdir
.Cm lock
.Oo Fl n Oc Ar name Ns | Ns Oo Fl u Oc Ar uid
.Op Fl q
.Op Fl C Ar config
.Nm
.Op Fl R Ar rootdir
.Op Fl V Ar etcdir
.Cm unlock
.Oo Fl n Oc Ar name Ns | Ns Oo Fl u Oc Ar uid
.Op Fl q
.Op Fl C Ar config
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
utility is a command-line based editor for the system
.Ar user
and
.Ar group
files, allowing the superuser an easy to use and standardized way of adding,
modifying and removing users and groups.
Note that
.Nm
only operates on the local user and group files.
.Tn NIS
users and groups must be
maintained on the
.Tn NIS
server.
The
.Nm
utility handles updating the
.Xr passwd 5 ,
.Xr master.passwd 5 ,
.Xr group 5
and the secure and insecure
password database files, and must be run as root.
.Pp
The first one or two keywords provided to
.Nm
on the command line provide the context for the remainder of the arguments.
The keywords
.Cm user
and
.Cm group
may be combined with
.Cm add ,
.Cm del ,
.Cm mod ,
.Cm show ,
or
.Cm next
in any order.
(For example,
.Cm showuser ,
.Cm usershow ,
.Cm show user ,
and
.Cm user show
all mean the same thing.)
This flexibility is useful for interactive scripts calling
.Nm
for user and group database manipulation.
Following these keywords,
the user or group name or numeric id may be optionally specified as an
alternative to using the
.Fl n Ar name ,
.Fl u Ar uid ,
.Fl g Ar gid
options.
.Pp
The following flags are common to most or all modes of operation:
.Bl -tag -width "-G grouplist"
.It Fl R Ar rootdir
Specifies an alternate root directory within which
.Nm
will operate.
Any paths specified will be relative to
.Va rootdir .
.It Fl V Ar etcdir
Set an alternate location for the password, group, and configuration files.
Can be used to maintain a user/group database in an alternate location.
If this switch is specified, the system
.Pa /etc/pw.conf
will not be sourced for default configuration data,
but the file
.Pa pw.conf
in the specified directory will be used instead
.Pq or none, if it does not exist .
The
.Fl C
flag may be used to override this behaviour.
As an exception to the general rule where options must follow the operation
type, the
.Fl V
flag must be used on the command line before the operation keyword.
.It Fl C Ar config
By default,
.Nm
reads the file
.Pa /etc/pw.conf
to obtain policy information on how new user accounts and groups are to be created.
The
.Fl C
option specifies a different configuration file.
While most of the contents of the configuration file may be overridden via
command-line options, it may be more convenient to keep standard information in a
configuration file.
.It Fl q
Use of this option causes
.Nm
to suppress error messages,
which may be useful in interactive environments where it
is preferable to interpret status codes returned by
.Nm
rather than messing up a carefully formatted display.
.It Fl N
This option is available in
.Cm add
and
.Cm modify
operations, and tells
.Nm
to output the result of the operation without updating the user or group
databases.
You may use the
.Fl P
option to switch between standard passwd and readable formats.
.It Fl Y
Using this option with any of the update modes causes
.Nm
to run
.Xr make 1
after changing to the directory
.Pa /var/yp .
This is intended to allow automatic updating of
.Tn NIS
database files.
If separate passwd and group files are being used by
.Tn NIS ,
then use the
.Fl y Ar nispasswd
option to specify the location of the
.Tn NIS
passwd database so that
.Nm
will concurrently update it with the system password
databases.
.El
.Sh USER OPTIONS
The following options apply to the
.Cm useradd
and
.Cm usermod
commands:
.Bl -tag -width "-G grouplist"
.It Oo Fl n Oc Ar name
Required unless
.Fl u Ar uid
is given.
Specify the user/account name.
In the case of
.Cm usermod
can be a
.Ar uid .
.It Fl u Ar uid
Required if
.Ar name
is not given.
Specify the user/account numeric id.
In the case of
.Cm usermod
if paired with
.Ar name ,
changes the numeric id of the named user/account.
.Pp
Usually, only one of these options is required,
as the account name will imply the uid, or vice versa.
However, there are times when both are needed.
For example, when changing the uid of an existing user with
.Cm usermod ,
or overriding the default uid when creating a new account with
.Cm useradd .
To automatically allocate the uid to a new user with
.Cm useradd ,
then do
.Em not
use the
.Fl u
option.
Either the account or userid can also be provided immediately after the
.Cm useradd ,
.Cm userdel ,
.Cm usermod ,
or
.Cm usershow
keywords on the command line without using the
.Fl n
or
.Fl u
options.
.El
.Bl -tag -width "-G grouplist"
.It Fl c Ar comment
This field sets the contents of the passwd GECOS field,
which normally contains up to four comma-separated fields containing the
user's full name, office or location,
and work and home phone numbers.
These sub-fields are used by convention only, however, and are optional.
If this field is to contain spaces,
the comment must be enclosed in double quotes
.Ql \&" .
Avoid using commas in this field as these are used as sub-field separators,
and the colon
.Ql \&:
character also cannot be used as this is the field separator for the passwd
file itself.
.It Fl d Ar homedir
This option sets the account's home directory.
Normally,
this is only used if the home directory is to be different from the
default determined from
.Pa /etc/pw.conf
- normally
.Pa /home
with the account name as a subdirectory.
.It Fl e Ar accexpdate
Set the account's expiration date.
Format of the date is either a UNIX time in decimal, or a date in
.Ql dd-mmm-yy[yy]
format, where dd is the day,
mmm is the month, either in numeric or alphabetic format
('Jan', 'Feb', etc) and year is either a two or four digit year.
This option also accepts a relative date in the form
.Ql \&+n[mhdwoy]
where
.Ql \&n
is a decimal,
octal (leading 0) or hexadecimal (leading 0x) digit followed by the
number of Minutes, Hours, Days, Weeks, Months or Years from the current date at
which the expiration date is to be set.
.It Fl p Ar passexpdate
Set the account's password expiration date.
This field is similar to the account expiration date option, except that it
applies to forced password changes.
This is set in the same manner as the
.Fl e
option.
.It Fl g Ar group
Set the account's primary group to the given group.
.Ar group
may be defined by either its name or group number.
.It Fl G Ar grouplist
Set secondary group memberships for an account.
.Ar grouplist
is a comma, space, or tab-separated list of group names or group numbers.
The user is added to the groups specified in
.Ar grouplist ,
and removed from all groups not specified.
The current login session is not affected by group membership changes,
which only take effect when the user reconnects.
Note: do not add a user to their primary group with
.Ar grouplist .
.It Fl L Ar class
This option sets the login class for the user being created.
See
.Xr login.conf 5
and
.Xr passwd 5
for more information on user login classes.
.It Fl m
This option instructs
.Nm
to attempt to create the user's home directory.
While primarily useful when adding a new account with
.Cm useradd ,
this may also be of use when moving an existing user's home directory elsewhere
on the file system.
The new home directory is populated with the contents of the
.Ar skeleton
directory, which typically contains a set of shell configuration files that the
user may personalize to taste.
Files in this directory are usually named
.Pa dot . Ns Aq Ar config
where the
.Pa dot
prefix will be stripped.
When
.Fl m
is used on an account with
.Cm usermod ,
existing configuration files in the user's home directory are
.Em not
overwritten from the skeleton files.
.Pp
When a user's home directory is created,
it will by default be a subdirectory of the
.Ar basehome
directory as specified by the
.Fl b
option, bearing the name of the new account.
This can be overridden by the
.Fl d
option on the command line, if desired.
.It Fl M Ar mode
Create the user's home directory with the specified
.Ar mode ,
modified by the current
.Xr umask 2 .
If omitted, it is derived from the parent process'
.Xr umask 2 .
This option is only useful in combination with the
.Fl m
flag.
.It Fl k Ar skeldir
Set the
.Ar skeleton
directory, from which basic startup and configuration files are copied when
the user's home directory is created.
This option only has meaning when used with the
.Fl d
or
.Fl m
flags.
.It Fl s Ar shell
Set or changes the user's login shell to
.Ar shell .
If the path to the shell program is omitted,
.Nm
searches the
.Ar shellpath
specified in
.Pa /etc/pw.conf
and fills it in as appropriate.
Note that unless you have a specific reason to do so, you should avoid
specifying the path - this will allow
.Nm
to validate that the program exists and is executable.
Specifying a full path (or supplying a blank "" shell) avoids this check
and allows for such entries as
.Pa /nonexistent
that should be set for accounts not intended for interactive login.
.It Fl h Ar fd
This option provides a special interface by which interactive scripts can
set an account password using
.Nm .
Because the command line and environment are fundamentally insecure mechanisms
by which programs can accept information,
.Nm
will only allow setting of account and group passwords via a file descriptor
(usually a pipe between an interactive script and the program).
.Ar sh ,
.Ar bash ,
.Ar ksh
and
.Ar perl
all possess mechanisms by which this can be done.
Alternatively,
.Nm
will prompt for the user's password if
.Fl h Ar 0
is given, nominating
.Em stdin
as the file descriptor on which to read the password.
Note that this password will be read only once and is intended
for use by a script rather than for interactive use.
If you wish to have new password confirmation along the lines of
.Xr passwd 1 ,
this must be implemented as part of an interactive script that calls
.Nm .
.Pp
If a value of
.Ql \&-
is given as the argument
.Ar fd ,
then the password will be set to
.Ql \&* ,
rendering the account inaccessible via password-based login.
.It Fl H Ar fd
Read an encrypted password string from the specified file descriptor.
This is like
.Fl h ,
but the password should be supplied already encrypted in a form
suitable for writing directly to the password database.
See
.Xr openssl-passwd 1
and
.Xr crypt 3
for more details about generating an encrypted password hash.
.El
.Pp
It is possible to use
.Cm useradd
to create a new account that duplicates an existing user id.
While this is normally considered an error and will be rejected, the
.Fl o
option overrides the check for duplicates and allows the duplication of
the user id.
This may be useful if you allow the same user to login under
different contexts (different group allocations, different home
directory, different shell) while providing basically the same
permissions for access to the user's files in each account.
.Pp
The
.Cm useradd
command also has the ability to set new user and group defaults by using the
.Fl D
option.
Instead of adding a new user,
.Nm
writes a new set of defaults to its configuration file,
.Pa /etc/pw.conf .
When using the
.Fl D
option, you must not use either
.Fl n Ar name
or
.Fl u Ar uid
or an error will result.
Use of
.Fl D
changes the meaning of several command line switches in the
.Ar useradd
command.
These are:
.Bl -tag -width "-G grouplist"
.It Fl D
Set default values in
.Pa /etc/pw.conf
configuration file, or a different named configuration file if the
.Fl C Ar config
option is used.
.It Fl b Ar basehome
Set the root directory in which user home directories are created.
The default value for this is
.Pa /home ,
but it may be set elsewhere as desired.
.It Fl e Ar accexpdays
Set the default account expiration period in days.
When
.Fl D
is used, the
.Ar accexpdays
argument is interpreted differently.
It must be numeric and represents the number of days after creation
that the account expires.
A value of 0 suppresses automatic calculation of the expiry date.
.It Fl p Ar passexpdays
Set the default password expiration period in days.
When
.Fl D
is used, the
.Ar passexpdays
argument is interpreted differently.
It must be numeric and represents the number of days after creation
that the account expires.
A value of 0 suppresses automatic calculation of the expiry date.
.It Fl g Ar group
Set the default group for new users.
If a blank group is specified using
.Fl g Ar \&"" ,
then new users will be allocated their own private primary group
with the same name as their login name.
If a group is supplied, either its name or uid may be given as an argument.
.It Fl G Ar grouplist
Set the default groups in which new users are granted membership.
This is a separate set of groups from the primary group.
Avoid nominating the same group as both primary and extra groups.
In other words, these extra groups determine membership in groups
.Em other than
the primary group.
.Ar grouplist
is a comma-separated list of group names or ids, and are always
stored in
.Pa /etc/pw.conf
by their symbolic names.
.It Fl L Ar class
This option sets the default login class for new users.
.It Fl k Ar skeldir
Set the default
.Em skeleton
directory,
from which prototype shell and other initialization files are copied when
.Nm
creates a user's home directory.
See description of
.Fl k
for naming conventions of these files.
.It Xo
.Fl u Ar minuid Ns Cm \&, Ns Ar maxuid ,
.Fl i Ar mingid Ns Cm \&, Ns Ar maxgid
.Xc
Set the minimum and maximum user and group ids allocated for new
accounts and groups created by
.Nm .
The default values for each is 1000 minimum and 32000 maximum.
.Ar minuid
and
.Ar maxuid
are both numbers, where max must be greater than min,
and both must be between 0 and 32767
.Po the same applies to
.Ar mingid
and
.Ar maxgid
.Pc .
In general,
user and group ids less than 100 are reserved for use by the system,
and numbers greater than 32000 may also be reserved for special purposes
.Pq used by some system daemons .
.It Fl w Ar passmethod
The
.Fl w
option selects the default method used to set passwords for newly created user
accounts.
.Ar passmethod
is one of:
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width random -offset indent -compact
.It Cm no
disable login on newly created accounts
.It Cm yes
force the password to be the account name
.It Cm none
force a blank password
.It Cm random
generate a random password
.El
.Pp
The
.Cm random
or
.Cm no
methods are the most secure; in the former case,
.Nm
generates a password and prints it to stdout,
which is suitable when users are issued passwords rather than being allowed
to select their own
.Pq possibly poorly chosen
password.
The
.Cm no
method requires that the superuser use
.Xr passwd 1
to render the account accessible with a password.
.It Fl y Ar path
This sets the pathname of the database used by
.Tn NIS
if you are not sharing
the information from
.Pa /etc/master.passwd
directly with
.Tn NIS .
You should only set this option for
.Tn NIS
servers.
.El
.Pp
The
.Cm userdel
command has three distinct options.
The
.Fl n Ar name
and
.Fl u Ar uid
options have already been covered above.
The additional option is:
.Bl -tag -width "-G grouplist"
.It Fl r
This tells
.Nm
to remove the user's home directory and all of its contents.
The
.Nm
utility errs on the side of caution when removing files from the system.
Firstly,
it will not do so if the uid of the account being removed is also used by
another account on the system, and the
.Dq home
directory in the password file is
a valid path that commences with the character
.Ql \&/ .
Secondly, it will only remove files and directories that are actually owned by
the user, or symbolic links owned by anyone under the user's home directory.
Finally, after deleting all contents owned by the user only empty directories
will be removed.
If any additional cleanup work is required, this is left to the administrator.
.El
.Pp
Mail spool files and
.Xr crontab 5
files are always removed when an account is deleted as
these are unconditionally attached to the user name.
Jobs queued for processing by
.Xr at 1
are also removed if the user's uid is unique and not also used by another
account on the system.
.Pp
The
.Cm usermod
command adds one additional option:
.Bl -tag -width "-G grouplist"
.It Fl l Ar newname
This option allows changing of an existing account name to
.Ar newname .
The new name must not already exist, and any attempt to duplicate an
existing account name will be rejected.
.El
.Pp
The
.Cm usershow
command allows viewing of an account in one of two formats.
By default, the format is identical to the format used in
.Pa /etc/master.passwd
with the password field replaced with a
.Ql \&* .
If the
.Fl P
option is used, then
.Nm
outputs the account details in a more human readable form.
If the
.Fl 7
option is used, the account details are shown in v7 format.
The
.Fl a
option lists all users currently on file.
Using
.Fl F
forces
.Nm
to print the details of an account even if it does not exist.
.Pp
The command
.Cm usernext
returns the next available user and group ids separated by a colon.
This is normally of interest only to interactive scripts or front-ends
that use
.Nm .
.Sh GROUP OPTIONS
The
.Fl C
and
.Fl q
options (explained at the start of the previous section) are available
with the group manipulation commands.
Other common options to all group-related commands are:
.Bl -tag -width "-m newmembers"
.It Oo Fl n Oc Ar name
Required unless
.Fl g Ar gid
is given.
Specify the group name.
In the case of
.Cm groupmod
can be a gid.
.It Fl g Ar gid
Required if
.Ar name
is not given.
Specify the group numeric id.
In the case of
.Cm groupmod
if paired with
.Ar name ,
changes the numeric id of the named group.
.Pp
As with the account name and id fields, you will usually only need
to supply one of these, as the group name implies the uid and vice
versa.
You will only need to use both when setting a specific group id
against a new group or when changing the uid of an existing group.
.It Fl M Ar memberlist
This option provides an alternative way to add existing users to a
new group
.Pq in Cm groupadd
or replace an existing membership list
.Pq in Cm groupmod .
.Ar memberlist
is a comma separated list of valid and existing user names or uids.
.It Fl m Ar newmembers
Similar to
.Fl M ,
this option allows the
.Em addition
of existing users to a group without replacing the existing list of
members.
Login names or user ids may be used, and duplicate users are
silently eliminated.
.It Fl d Ar oldmembers
Similar to
.Fl M ,
this option allows the
.Em deletion
of existing users from a group without replacing the existing list of
members.
Login names or user ids may be used, and duplicate users are
silently eliminated.
.El
.Pp
.Cm groupadd
also has a
.Fl o
option that allows allocation of an existing group id to a new group.
The default action is to reject an attempt to add a group,
and this option overrides the check for duplicate group ids.
There is rarely any need to duplicate a group id.
.Pp
The
.Cm groupmod
command adds one additional option:
.Bl -tag -width "-m newmembers"
.It Fl l Ar newname
This option allows changing of an existing group name to
.Ar newname .
The new name must not already exist,
and any attempt to duplicate an existing group
name will be rejected.
.El
.Pp
Options for
.Cm groupshow
are the same as for
.Cm usershow ,
with the
.Fl g Ar gid
replacing
.Fl u Ar uid
to specify the group id.
The
.Fl 7
option does not apply to the
.Cm groupshow
command.
.Pp
The command
.Cm groupnext
returns the next available group id on standard output.
.Sh USER LOCKING
The
.Nm
utility
supports a simple password locking mechanism for users; it works by
prepending the string
.Ql *LOCKED*
to the beginning of the password field in
.Xr master.passwd 5
to prevent successful authentication.
.Pp
The
.Cm lock
and
.Cm unlock
commands take a user name or uid of the account to lock or unlock,
respectively.
The
.Fl V ,
.Fl C ,
and
.Fl q
options as described above are accepted by these commands.
.Sh NOTES
For a summary of options available with each command, you can use
.Dl pw [command] help
For example,
.Dl pw useradd help
lists all available options for the
.Cm useradd
operation.
.Pp
The
.Nm
utility allows 8-bit characters in the passwd GECOS field (user's full name,
office, work and home phone number subfields), but disallows them in
user login and group names.
Use 8-bit characters with caution, as connection to the Internet will
require that your mail transport program supports 8BITMIME, and will
convert headers containing 8-bit characters to 7-bit quoted-printable
format.
.Xr sendmail 8
does support this.
Use of 8-bit characters in the GECOS field should be used in
conjunction with the user's default locale and character set
and should not be implemented without their use.
Using 8-bit characters may also affect other
programs that transmit the contents of the GECOS field over the
Internet, such as
.Xr fingerd 8 ,
and a small number of TCP/IP clients, such as IRC, where full names
specified in the passwd file may be used by default.
.Pp
The
.Nm
utility writes a log to the
.Pa /var/log/userlog
file when actions such as user or group additions or deletions occur.
The location of this logfile can be changed in
.Xr pw.conf 5 .
.Sh FILES
.Bl -tag -width /etc/master.passwd.new -compact
.It Pa /etc/master.passwd
The user database
.It Pa /etc/passwd
A Version 7 format password file
.It Pa /etc/login.conf
The user capabilities database
.It Pa /etc/group
The group database
.It Pa /etc/pw.conf
Pw default options file
.It Pa /var/log/userlog
User/group modification logfile
.El
.Sh EXAMPLES
Add new user Glurmo Smith (gsmith).
A gsmith login group is created if not already present.
The login shell is set to
.Xr csh 1 .
A new home directory at
.Pa /home/gsmith
is created if it does not already exist.
Finally, a random password is generated and displayed:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
pw useradd -n gsmith -c "Glurmo Smith" -s csh -m -w random
.Ed
.Pp
Delete the gsmith user and their home directory, including contents.
.Bd -literal -offset indent
pw userdel -n gsmith -r
.Ed
.Pp
Add the existing user jsmith to the wheel group,
in addition to the other groups jsmith is already a member of.
.Bd -literal -offset indent
pw groupmod wheel -m jsmith
.Ed
.Pp
Generate random password and show it in both plain text and
encrypted form not modifying any database.
.Bd -literal -offset indent
pw usermod nobody -Nw random
.Ed
.Sh EXIT STATUS
The
.Nm
utility returns EXIT_SUCCESS on successful operation, otherwise
.Nm
returns one of the
following exit codes defined by
.Xr sysexits 3
as follows:
.Bl -tag -width xxxx
.It EX_USAGE
.Bl -bullet -compact
.It
Command line syntax errors (invalid keyword, unknown option).
.El
.It EX_NOPERM
.Bl -bullet -compact
.It
Attempting to run one of the update modes as non-root.
.El
.It EX_OSERR
.Bl -bullet -compact
.It
Memory allocation error.
.It
Read error from password file descriptor.
.El
.It EX_DATAERR
.Bl -bullet -compact
.It
Bad or invalid data provided or missing on the command line or
via the password file descriptor.
.It
Attempted to remove, rename root account or change its uid.
.El
.It EX_OSFILE
.Bl -bullet -compact
.It
Skeleton directory is invalid or does not exist.
.It
Base home directory is invalid or does not exist.
.It
Invalid or non-existent shell specified.
.El
.It EX_NOUSER
.Bl -bullet -compact
.It
User, user id, group or group id specified does not exist.
.It
User or group recorded, added, or modified unexpectedly disappeared.
.El
.It EX_SOFTWARE
.Bl -bullet -compact
.It
No more group or user ids available within specified range.
.El
.It EX_IOERR
.Bl -bullet -compact
.It
Unable to rewrite configuration file.
.It
Error updating group or user database files.
.It
Update error for passwd or group database files.
.El
.It EX_CONFIG
.Bl -bullet -compact
.It
No base home directory configured.
.El
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr chpass 1 ,
.Xr passwd 1 ,
.Xr umask 2 ,
.Xr group 5 ,
.Xr login.conf 5 ,
.Xr passwd 5 ,
.Xr pw.conf 5 ,
.Xr pwd_mkdb 8 ,
.Xr vipw 8
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm
utility was written to mimic many of the options used in the SYSV
.Em shadow
support suite, but is modified for passwd and group fields specific to
the
.Bx 4.4
operating system, and combines all of the major elements
into a single command.