chpasswd

change the password of a user

Usage

accurev chpasswd [ <name> [ <new-password> ] ]

Description

The chpasswd command changes the AccuRev password of a registered AccuRev user. Both <name> and <new-password> are part of AccuRev’s security system, and are stored in the AccuRev repository. Don’t confuse your AccuRev principal-name and password with the username and password maintained by the operating system. (The names and passwords can match, but they are two distinct data items.)

AccuRev allows you to change any user’s password, not just your own. We strongly recommend that your organization use a server_admin_trig trigger to provide an appropriate level of control over the ability to change user passwords.

There are several ways to use this command:

  • If you enter the command accurev chpasswd with no additional arguments, AccuRev changes your own password — it prompts you to enter a new password, and then to confirm by entering it again. The password characters are echoed as asterisks (*).
  • If you specify a username — yours or someone else’s — on the command line after chpasswd, AccuRev changes that user’s password. As above, it prompts you to type the new password twice.
  • You can specify both a username and a new password on the command line. This eliminates the double prompting for the new password. But there’s a potential security hole: if your command shell process has command logging enabled (using environment variable ACCUREV_COMMAND_LOGFILE), the new password will appear in the log file, since it is on the command line.

Password Storage and Password-Change Procedure — AccuRev Login Scheme

Your password is stored in the AccuRev repository in encrypted format.

Examples

Change the password of user john_smith to verYtas:

   > accurev chpasswd john_smith verYtas

Change your password, letting chpasswd prompt you to enter and confirm the new password:

   > accurev chpasswd
New password: *****
Confirmation: *****
Changed password for user alex

See Also

login, logout, mktrig, mkuser, remove (user), show (users)