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Changing Your Password
The last topic we'll cover in this chapter is setting passwords for yourself (and for other users if you have access to superuser privileges). To set or change a password, the passwd command is used. The command syntax looks like this:
passwd [user]
passwd [user]
To change your password, just enter the passwd command. You will be prompted for your old password and your new password:
[me@linuxbox ~]$ passwd (current) UNIX password: New UNIX password:
[me@linuxbox ~]$ passwd (current) UNIX password: New UNIX password:
The passwd command will try to enforce use of “strong” passwords. This means it will refuse to accept passwords that are too short, too similar to previous passwords, are dic-
tionary words, or are too easily guessed:
[me@linuxbox ~]$ passwd (current) UNIX password: New UNIX password:
BAD PASSWORD: is too similar to the old one New UNIX password:
BAD PASSWORD: it is WAY too short New UNIX password:
BAD PASSWORD: it is based on a dictionary word
[me@linuxbox ~]$ passwd (current) UNIX password: New UNIX password:
BAD PASSWORD: is too similar to the old one New UNIX password:
BAD PASSWORD: it is WAY too short New UNIX password:
BAD PASSWORD: it is based on a dictionary word
If you have superuser privileges, you can specify a username as an argument to the passwd command to set the password for another user. Other options are available to the superuser to allow account locking, password expiration, etc. See the passwd man page for details.