CHFN(1)                                   User Commands                                   CHFN(1)



NAME
       chfn - change real user name and information

SYNOPSIS
       chfn [options] [LOGIN]

DESCRIPTION
       The chfn command changes user fullname, office room number, office phone number, and home
       phone number information for a user's account. 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.

OPTIONS
       The options which apply to the chfn command are:

       -f, --full-name FULL_NAME
           Change the user's full name.

       -h, --home-phone HOME_PHONE
           Change the user's home phone number.

       -o, --other OTHER
           Change the user's other GECOS information. This field is used to store accounting
           information used by other applications, and can be changed only by a superuser.

       -r, --room ROOM_NUMBER
           Change the user's room number.

       -R, --root CHROOT_DIR
           Apply changes in the CHROOT_DIR directory and use the configuration files from the
           CHROOT_DIR directory.

       -u, --help
           Display help message and exit.

       -w, --work-phone WORK_PHONE
           Change the user's office phone number.

       If none of the options are 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. Without options, chfn prompts for the current user account.

CONFIGURATION
       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.

FILES
       /etc/login.defs
           Shadow password suite configuration.

       /etc/passwd
           User account information.

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



shadow-utils 4.2                            05/17/2017                                    CHFN(1)