PW(8) FreeBSD System Manager's Manual PW(8)
NAME
pw - create, remove, modify & display system users and groups
SYNOPSIS
pw [-R rootdir] [-V etcdir] useradd [-n] name [-u uid] [-C config] [-q]
[-c comment] [-d dir] [-e date] [-p date] [-g group] [-G grouplist]
[-m] [-M mode] [-k dir] [-w method] [-s shell] [-o] [-L class]
[-h fd | -H fd] [-N] [-P] [-Y]
pw [-R rootdir] [-V etcdir] useradd -D [-C config] [-q] [-b dir]
[-e days] [-p days] [-g group] [-G grouplist] [-k dir] [-M mode]
[-u min,max] [-i min,max] [-w method] [-s shell] [-y path]
pw [-R rootdir] [-V etcdir] userdel [-n] name|uid | -u uid [-r] [-Y]
pw [-R rootdir] [-V etcdir] usermod [-n] name|uid [-u newuid] | -u uid
[-C config] [-q] [-c comment] [-d dir] [-e date] [-p date] [-g group]
[-G grouplist] [-l newname] [-m] [-M mode] [-k dir] [-w method]
[-s shell] [-L class] [-h fd | -H fd] [-N] [-P] [-Y]
pw [-R rootdir] [-V etcdir] usershow [-n] name|uid | -u uid [-F] [-P]
[-7] [-a]
pw [-R rootdir] [-V etcdir] usernext [-C config] [-q]
pw [-R rootdir] [-V etcdir] groupadd [-n] name [-g gid] [-C config] [-q]
[-M members] [-o] [-h fd | -H fd] [-N] [-P] [-Y]
pw [-R rootdir] [-V etcdir] groupdel [-n] name|gid | -g gid [-Y]
pw [-R rootdir] [-V etcdir] groupmod [-n] name|gid [-g newgid] | -g gid
[-C config] [-q] [-l newname] [-M members] [-m newmembers]
[-d oldmembers] [-h fd | -H fd] [-N] [-P] [-Y]
pw [-R rootdir] [-V etcdir] groupshow [-n] name|gid | -g gid [-F] [-P]
[-a]
pw [-R rootdir] [-V etcdir] groupnext [-C config] [-q]
pw [-R rootdir] [-V etcdir] lock [-n] name|uid | -u uid [-C config] [-q]
pw [-R rootdir] [-V etcdir] unlock [-n] name|uid | -u uid [-C config]
[-q]
DESCRIPTION
The pw utility is a command-line based editor for the system user and
group files, allowing the superuser an easy to use and standardized way
of adding, modifying and removing users and groups. Note that pw only
operates on the local user and group files. NIS users and groups must be
maintained on the NIS server. The pw utility handles updating the
passwd, master.passwd, group and the secure and insecure password
database files, and must be run as root.
The first one or two keywords provided to pw on the command line provide
the context for the remainder of the arguments. The keywords user and
group may be combined with add, del, mod, show, or next in any order.
(For example, showuser, usershow, show user, and user show all mean the
same thing.) This flexibility is useful for interactive scripts calling
pw 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 -n name, -u uid, -g gid options.
The following flags are common to most or all modes of operation:
-R rootdir Specifies an alternate root directory within which pw will
operate. Any paths specified will be relative to rootdir.
-V 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 /etc/pw.conf will not be sourced for
default configuration data, but the file pw.conf in the
specified directory will be used instead (or none, if it
does not exist). The -C flag may be used to override this
behaviour. As an exception to the general rule where
options must follow the operation type, the -V flag must be
used on the command line before the operation keyword.
-C config By default, pw reads the file /etc/pw.conf to obtain policy
information on how new user accounts and groups are to be
created. The -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.
-q Use of this option causes pw to suppress error messages,
which may be useful in interactive environments where it is
preferable to interpret status codes returned by pw rather
than messing up a carefully formatted display.
-N This option is available in add and modify operations, and
tells pw to output the result of the operation without
updating the user or group databases. You may use the -P
option to switch between standard passwd and readable
formats.
-Y Using this option with any of the update modes causes pw to
run make(1) after changing to the directory /var/yp. This
is intended to allow automatic updating of NIS database
files. If separate passwd and group files are being used
by NIS, then use the -y path option to specify the location
of the NIS passwd database so that pw will concurrently
update it with the system password databases.
USER OPTIONS
The following options apply to the useradd and usermod commands:
[-n] name Required unless -u uid is given. Specify the user/account
name. In the case of usermod can be a uid.
-u uid Required if name is not given. Specify the user/account
numeric id. In the case of usermod if paired with name,
changes the numeric id of the named user/account.
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 usermod, or
overriding the default uid when creating a new account with
useradd. To automatically allocate the uid to a new user
with useradd, then do not use the -u option. Either the
account or userid can also be provided immediately after
the useradd, userdel, usermod or usershow keywords on the
command line without using the -n or -u options.
-c 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 `"'. Avoid using commas in this field as
these are used as sub-field separators, and the colon `:'
character also cannot be used as this is the field
separator for the passwd file itself.
-d dir 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 /etc/pw.conf - normally
/home with the account name as a subdirectory.
-e date Set the account's expiration date. Format of the date is
either a UNIX time in decimal, or a date in `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 `+n[mhdwoy]' where `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.
-p date 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 -e option.
-g group Set the account's primary group to the given group. group
may be defined by either its name or group number.
-G grouplist Set secondary group memberships for an account. grouplist
is a comma, space, or tab-separated list of group names or
group numbers. The user is added to the groups specified
in 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 grouplist.
-L class This option sets the login class for the user being
created. See login.conf(5) and passwd(5) for more
information on user login classes.
-m This option instructs pw to attempt to create the user's
home directory. While primarily useful when adding a new
account with 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 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 dot.<config> where the dot prefix will be
stripped. When -m is used on an account with usermod,
existing configuration files in the user's home directory
are not overwritten from the skeleton files.
When a user's home directory is created, it will by default
be a subdirectory of the basehome directory as specified by
the -b option (see below), bearing the name of the new
account. This can be overridden by the -d option on the
command line, if desired.
-M mode Create the user's home directory with the specified mode,
modified by the current umask(2). If omitted, it is
derived from the parent process' umask(2). This option is
only useful in combination with the -m flag.
-k dir Set the 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 -d or -m flags.
-s shell Set or changes the user's login shell to shell. If the
path to the shell program is omitted, pw searches the
shellpath specified in /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 pw 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
/nonexistent that should be set for accounts not intended
for interactive login.
-h fd This option provides a special interface by which
interactive scripts can set an account password using pw.
Because the command line and environment are fundamentally
insecure mechanisms by which programs can accept
information, pw will only allow setting of account and
group passwords via a file descriptor (usually a pipe
between an interactive script and the program). sh, bash,
ksh and perl all possess mechanisms by which this can be
done. Alternatively, pw will prompt for the user's
password if -h 0 is given, nominating 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
passwd(1), this must be implemented as part of an
interactive script that calls pw.
If a value of `-' is given as the argument fd, then the
password will be set to `*', rendering the account
inaccessible via password-based login.
-H fd Read an encrypted password string from the specified file
descriptor. This is like -h, but the password should be
supplied already encrypted in a form suitable for writing
directly to the password database.
It is possible to use useradd to create a new account that duplicates an
existing user id. While this is normally considered an error and will be
rejected, the -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.
The useradd command also has the ability to set new user and group
defaults by using the -D option. Instead of adding a new user, pw writes
a new set of defaults to its configuration file, /etc/pw.conf. When
using the -D option, you must not use either -n name or -u uid or an
error will result. Use of -D changes the meaning of several command line
switches in the useradd command. These are:
-D Set default values in /etc/pw.conf configuration file, or a
different named configuration file if the -C config option
is used.
-b dir Set the root directory in which user home directories are
created. The default value for this is /home, but it may
be set elsewhere as desired.
-e days Set the default account expiration period in days. When -D
is used, the days 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.
-p days Set the default password expiration period in days. When
-D is used, the days 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.
-g group Set the default group for new users. If a blank group is
specified using -g "", 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.
-G 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 other than the
primary group. grouplist is a comma-separated list of
group names or ids, and are always stored in /etc/pw.conf
by their symbolic names.
-L class This option sets the default login class for new users.
-k dir Set the default skeleton directory, from which prototype
shell and other initialization files are copied when pw
creates a user's home directory. See description of -k for
naming conventions of these files.
-u min,max, -i min,max
Set the minimum and maximum user and group ids allocated
for new accounts and groups created by pw. The default
values for each is 1000 minimum and 32000 maximum. min and
max are both numbers, where max must be greater than min,
and both must be between 0 and 32767. 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 (used by some system daemons).
-w method The -w option selects the default method used to set
passwords for newly created user accounts. method is one
of:
no disable login on newly created accounts
yes force the password to be the account name
none force a blank password
random generate a random password
The `random' or `no' methods are the most secure; in the
former case, pw generates a password and prints it to
stdout, which is suitable when users are issued passwords
rather than being allowed to select their own (possibly
poorly chosen) password. The `no' method requires that the
superuser use passwd(1) to render the account accessible
with a password.
-y path This sets the pathname of the database used by NIS if you
are not sharing the information from /etc/master.passwd
directly with NIS. You should only set this option for NIS
servers.
The userdel command has three distinct options. The -n name and -u uid
options have already been covered above. The additional option is:
-r This tells pw to remove the user's home directory and all
of its contents. The pw 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 'home'
directory in the password file is a valid path that
commences with the character `/'. 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.
Mail spool files and crontabs are always removed when an account is
deleted as these are unconditionally attached to the user name. Jobs
queued for processing by at are also removed if the user's uid is unique
and not also used by another account on the system.
The usermod command adds one additional option:
-l newname This option allows changing of an existing account name to
`newname'. The new name must not already exist, and any
attempt to duplicate an existing account name will be
rejected.
The usershow command allows viewing of an account in one of two formats.
By default, the format is identical to the format used in
/etc/master.passwd with the password field replaced with a `*'. If the
-P option is used, then pw outputs the account details in a more human
readable form. If the -7 option is used, the account details are shown
in v7 format. The -a option lists all users currently on file. Using -F
forces pw to print the details of an account even if it does not exist.
The command 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 pw.
GROUP OPTIONS
The -C and -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:
[-n] name Required unless -g gid is given. Specify the group name.
In the case of groupmod can be a gid.
-g gid Required if name is not given. Specify the group numeric
id. In the case of groupmod if paired with name, changes
the numeric id of the named group.
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.
-M memberlist This option provides an alternative way to add existing
users to a new group (in groupadd) or replace an existing
membership list (in groupmod). memberlist is a comma
separated list of valid and existing user names or uids.
-m newmembers Similar to -M, this option allows the 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.
-d oldmembers Similar to -M, this option allows the 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.
groupadd also has a -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.
The groupmod command adds one additional option:
-l newname This option allows changing of an existing group name to
`newname'. The new name must not already exist, and any
attempt to duplicate an existing group name will be
rejected.
Options for groupshow are the same as for usershow, with the -g gid
replacing -u uid to specify the group id. The -7 option does not apply
to the groupshow command.
The command groupnext returns the next available group id on standard
output.
USER LOCKING
The pw utility supports a simple password locking mechanism for users; it
works by prepending the string `*LOCKED*' to the beginning of the
password field in master.passwd to prevent successful authentication.
The lock and unlock commands take a user name or uid of the account to
lock or unlock, respectively. The -V, -C, and -q options as described
above are accepted by these commands.
NOTES
For a summary of options available with each command, you can use
pw [command] help
For example,
pw useradd help
lists all available options for the useradd operation.
The pw 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. 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 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.
The pw utility writes a log to the /var/log/userlog file when actions
such as user or group additions or deletions occur. The location of this
logfile can be changed in pw.conf(5).
FILES
/etc/master.passwd The user database
/etc/passwd A Version 7 format password file
/etc/login.conf The user capabilities database
/etc/group The group database
/etc/pw.conf Pw default options file
/var/log/userlog User/group modification logfile
EXAMPLES
Add new user Glurmo Smith (gsmith). A gsmith login group is created if
not already present. The login shell is set to csh(1). A new home
directory at /home/gsmith is created if it does not already exist.
Finally, a random password is generated and displayed:
pw useradd -n gsmith -c "Glurmo Smith" -s /bin/csh -m -w random
Delete the gsmith user and their home directory, including contents.
pw userdel -n gsmith -r
Add the existing user jsmith to the wheel group, in addition to the other
groups jsmith is already a member of.
pw groupmod wheel -m jsmith
EXIT STATUS
The pw utility returns EXIT_SUCCESS on successful operation, otherwise pw
returns one of the following exit codes defined by sysexits(3) as
follows:
EX_USAGE
• Command line syntax errors (invalid keyword, unknown option).
EX_NOPERM
• Attempting to run one of the update modes as non-root.
EX_OSERR
• Memory allocation error.
• Read error from password file descriptor.
EX_DATAERR
• Bad or invalid data provided or missing on the command line or
via the password file descriptor.
• Attempted to remove, rename root account or change its uid.
EX_OSFILE
• Skeleton directory is invalid or does not exist.
• Base home directory is invalid or does not exist.
• Invalid or non-existent shell specified.
EX_NOUSER
• User, user id, group or group id specified does not exist.
• User or group recorded, added, or modified unexpectedly
disappeared.
EX_SOFTWARE
• No more group or user ids available within specified range.
EX_IOERR
• Unable to rewrite configuration file.
• Error updating group or user database files.
• Update error for passwd or group database files.
EX_CONFIG
• No base home directory configured.
SEE ALSO
chpass(1), passwd(1), umask(2), group(5), login.conf(5), passwd(5),
pw.conf(5), pwd_mkdb(8), vipw(8)
HISTORY
The pw utility was written to mimic many of the options used in the SYSV
shadow support suite, but is modified for passwd and group fields
specific to the 4.4BSD operating system, and combines all of the major
elements into a single command.
FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE-p6 February 8, 2019 FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE-p6
man2web Home...