The passwd command

What does it do ?

Changes login password and password attributes.

How is it used ?

Type: passwd username

Examples and remarks

If you type in the command passwd username, you can change your password and/or the attributes associated with your password. Passwords must be constructed to meet the following requirements:

• Each password must have at least six characters. Only the first eight characters are significant.
• Each password must differ from the user's login name and any reverse or circular shift of that name and any reverse or circular shift of that login name.
• Each password must contain at least two alphabetic characters and at least one numeric or special character.
• New passwords must differ from the old by at least three characters. For comparison purposes, an upper case letter and its corresponding lower case letter are equivalent.

Any user may use the -s option to show password attributes for his or her own login name. Simply type passwd -s. The format of the display will be:

name status mm/dd/yy min max

For more information on password attributes and changing them, refer to the man pages by typing man passwd.