usermod(1M) System Administration Commands usermod(1M)
usermod - modify a user's login information on the system
usermod [ -u uid [-o]] [-g group] [ -G group [ , group...]] [ -d dir
[-m]] [-s shell] [-c comment] [-l new_name] [-f inactive] [-e expire]
[-A authorization [, authorization]] [-P profile [, profile]] [-R
role [, role]] login
The usermod utility modifies a user's login definition on the system.
It changes the definition of the specified login and makes the appro-
priate login-related system file and file system changes.
The system file entries created with this command have a limit of 512
characters per line. Specifying long arguments to several options may
exceed this limit.
The following options are supported:
-A authorization
One or more comma separated authorizations as deined in
auth_attr(4). Only a user or role who has grant rights to the
authorization can assign it to an account. This replaces any
existing authorization setting.
-c comment
Specify a comment string. comment can be any text string. It is
generally a short description of the login, and is currently used
as the field for the user's full name. This information is stored
in the user's /etc/passwd entry.
-d dir
Specify the new home directory of the user. It defaults to
base_dir/login, where base_dir is the base directory for new
login home directories, and
login is the new login.
-e expire
Specify the expiration date for a login. After this date, no
user will be able to access this login. The expire option argu-
ment is a date entered using one of the date formats included in
the template file /etc/datemsk. See getdate(3C).
For example, you may enter 10/6/90 or October 6, 1990. A value
of `` '' defeats the status of the expired date.
-f inactive
Specify the maximum number of days allowed between uses of a
login ID before that login ID is declared invalid. Normal values
are positive integers. A value of 0 defeats the status.
-g group
Specify an existing group's integer ID or character-string name.
It redefines the user's primary group membership.
-G group
Specify an existing group's integer "ID" "," or character string
name. It redefines the user's supplementary group membership.
Duplicates between group with the -g and
-G options are ignored. No more than NGROUPS_UMAX groups may be
specified as defined in <param.h>.
-l new_logname
Specify the new login name for the user. The new_logname argu-
ment is a string no more than eight bytes consisting of charac-
ters from the set of alphabetic characters, numeric characters,
period (.), underline (_), and hypen (-). The first character
should be alphabetic and the field should contain at least one
lower case alphabetic character.
A warning message will be written if these restrictions are not
met. A future Solaris release may refuse to accept login fields
that do not meet these requirements. The new_logname argument
must contain at least one character and must not contain a colon
(:) or NEWLINE (\n).
-m Move the user's home directory to the new directory specified
with the -d option. If the directory already exists, it must
have permissions read/write/execute by group, where group is
the user's primary group.
-o This option allows the specified UID to be duplicated (non-
unique).
-P profile
One or more comma-separated execution profiles defined in
auth_attr(4). This replaces any existing profile setting.
-R role
One or more comma-separated execution profiles defined in
auth_attr(4). This replaces any existing role setting.
-s shell
Specify the full pathname of the program that is used as the
user's shell on login. The value of shell must be a valid exe-
cutable file.
-u uid
Specify a new UID for the user. It must be a non-negative decimal
integer less than MAXUID as defined in <param.h>. The UID asso-
ciated with the user's home directory is not modified with this
option; a user will not have access to their home directory until
the UID is manually reassigned using chown(1M).
The following operands are supported:
login
An existing login name to be modified.
In case of an error, usermod prints an error message and exits with
one of the following values:
2 The command syntax was invalid. A usage message for the usermod
command is displayed.
3 An invalid argument was provided to an option.
4 The uid given with the -u option is already in use.
5 The password files contain an error. pwconv(1M) can be used to
correct possible errors. See passwd(4).
6 The login to be modified does not exist, the group does not
exist, or the login shell does not exist.
8 The login to be modified is in use.
9 The new_logname is already in use.
10 Cannot update the /etc/group or /etc/user_attr file. Other
update requests will be implemented.
11 Insufficient space to move the home directory (-m option). Other
update requests will be implemented.
12 Unable to complete the move of the home directory to the new home
directory.
/etc/group
system file containing group definitions
/etc/datemsk
system file of date formats
/etc/passwd
system password file
/etc/shadow
system file containing users' encrypted passwords and related
information
/etc/usr_attr
system file containing additional user and role attributes
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
|Availability |SUNWcsu |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
passwd(1), users(1B), chown(1M), groupadd(1M), groupdel(1M), group-
mod(1M), logins(1M), pwconv(1M), roleadd(1M), roledel(1M), rolemod(1M),
useradd(1M), userdel(1M), getdate(3C), auth_attr(4), passwd(4),
attributes(5)
The usermod utility modifies passwd definitions only in the local
/etc/passwd and /etc/shadow files. If a network nameservice such as NIS
or NIS+ is being used to supplement the local files with additional
entries, usermod cannot change information supplied by the network
nameservice. However usermod will verify the uniqueness of user name
and user ID against the external nameservice.
The usermod utility uses the /etc/datemsk file, available with
SUNWaccr, for date formatting.
SunOS 5.9 8 Sep 1999 usermod(1M)