chage
chage stands for “change age”. i.e chage command abbreviation
[root@localhost profile.d]# chage --list a507394 Last password change : Apr 10, 2011 Password expires : never Password inactive : never Account expires : never Minimum number of days between password change : 0 Maximum number of days between password change : 99999 Number of days of warning before password expires : 7
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Password Expiry Date for an user using chage option -M
Please note that option -M will update both “Password expires” and “Maximum number of days between password change” entries as shown below.
# chage -M 10 dhinesh # chage --list dhinesh Last password change : Apr 23, 2009 Password expires : May 03, 2009 Password inactive : never Account expires : never Minimum number of days between password change : 0 Maximum number of days between password change : 10 Number of days of warning before password expires : 7
Account Expiry Date for an User
You can also use chage command to set the account expiry date as shown below using option -E. The date given below is in “YYYY-MM-DD” format. This will update the “Account expires” value as shown below.
# chage -E "2009-05-31" dhinesh # chage -l dhinesh Last password change : Apr 23, 2009 Password expires : May 03, 2009 Password inactive : never Account expires : May 31, 2009 Minimum number of days between password change : 0 Maximum number of days between password change : 10 Number of days of warning before password expires : 7
Force the user account to be locked after X number of inactivity days
Typically if the password is expired, users are forced to change it during their next login. You can also set an additional condition, where after the password is expired, if the user never tried to login for 10 days, you can automatically lock their account using option -I as shown below. In this example, the “Password inactive” date is set to 10 days from the “Password expires” value.
Once an account is locked, only system administrators will be able to unlock it.
# chage -I 10 dhinesh # chage -l dhinesh Last password change : Apr 23, 2009 Password expires : May 03, 2009 Password inactive : May 13, 2009 Account expires : May 31, 2009 Minimum number of days between password change : 0 Maximum number of days between password change : 10 Number of days of warning before password expires : 7
How to disable password aging for an user account
To turn off the password expiration for an user account, set the following:
- -m 0 will set the minimum number of days between password change to 0
- -M 99999 will set the maximum number of days between password change to 99999
- -I -1 (number minus one) will set the “Password inactive” to never
- -E -1 (number minus one) will set “Account expires” to never.
# chage -m 0 -M 99999 -I -1 -E -1 dhinesh # chage --list dhinesh Last password change : Apr 23, 2009 Password expires : never Password inactive : never Account expires : never Minimum number of days between password change : 0 Maximum number of days between password change : 99999 Number of days of warning before password expires : 7
