Scroll to navigation

CHFN(1) User Commands CHFN(1)

NAME

chfn - change full user name and information

ÜBERSICHT

chfn [options] [LOGIN]

BESCHREIBUNG

The chfn command changes the user's full name, office room number, office phone number, and home phone number information for an account in the respective fields of /etc/passwd. This information is typically printed by finger(1) and similar programs. A normal user may only change the fields for her own account, subject to the restrictions in /etc/login.defs. (The default configuration is to prevent users from changing their fullname.) The superuser may change any field for any account. Additionally, only the superuser may use the -o option to change the undefined portions of the GECOS field.

These fields must not contain any colons. Except for the other field, they should not contain any comma or equal sign. It is also recommended to avoid non-US-ASCII characters, but this is only enforced for the phone numbers. The other field is used to store accounting information used by other applications.

If LOGIN is not specified, chfn acts on the current user, and prompts for the current user's password.

OPTIONEN

The options which apply to the chfn command are:

-f, --full-name FULL_NAME

ändert den vollständigen Namen des Benutzers.

-h, --home-phone HOME_PHONE

ändert die private Telefonnummer des Benutzers.

-o, --other OTHER

ändert sonstige GECOS-Informationen über den Benutzer. In diesem Feld werden Kontoinformationen anderer Anwendungen gespeichert. Es kann nur vom Systemadministrator verändert werden.

-r, --room ROOM_NUMBER

ändert die Raumnummer des Benutzers.

-R, --root CHROOT_DIR

Apply changes in the CHROOT_DIR directory and use the configuration files from the CHROOT_DIR directory.

-u, --help

zeigt die Hilfe an und beendet das Programm.

-w, --work-phone WORK_PHONE

ändert die berufliche Telefonnummer des Benutzers.

If none of the options is selected, chfn operates in an interactive fashion, prompting the user with the current values for all of the fields. Enter the new value to change the field, or leave the line blank to use the current value. The current value is displayed between a pair of [] marks.

KONFIGURATION

The following configuration variables in /etc/login.defs change the behavior of this tool:

CHFN_RESTRICT (string)

This parameter specifies which values in the gecos field of the /etc/passwd file may be changed by regular users using the chfn program. It can be any combination of letters f, r, w, h, for Full name, Room number, Work phone, and Home phone, respectively. For backward compatibility, yes is equivalent to rwh and no is equivalent to frwh. If not specified, only the superuser can make any changes. The most restrictive setting is better achieved by not installing chfn SUID.

DATEIEN

/etc/login.defs

konfiguriert die Shadow-Hilfsprogramme.

/etc/passwd

Informationen zu den Benutzerkonten

SIEHE AUCH

chsh(1), login.defs(5), passwd(5).

16.09.2025 shadow-utils 4.18.0