Content-type: text/html Man page of mkpasswd

mkpasswd

Section: Maintenance Commands (8)
Index Return to Main Contents
 

NAME

mkpasswd - Creates a version of the basic user database organized for efficient searches  

SYNOPSIS

/usr/sbin/mkpasswd [-v] [-s size] passwdfile  

DESCRIPTION

The mkpasswd command creates an auxiliary version of the basic user database in a form organized for efficient searches by the getpwuid subroutine and the getpwnam subroutine. The mkpasswd command reads the user attributes in the /etc/passwd file and creates a hashed password database in the /etc/passwd.dir and /etc/passwd.pag files (see ndbm(3) reference page).

If you specify a file other than /etc/passwd, the command reads the user attributes in that file and creates a hashed password database in the passwdfile.dir and passwdfile.pag files. It is important to know that the password file you designate must be in password file format (see the passwd(4) reference page).

Note that if you use the vipw command to edit a password file, you do not need to use the mkpasswd command. This is because the vipw command automatically invokes the mkpasswd command which in turn creates the /etc/passwd.dir and /etc/passwd.pag files.

Only the root user should have execute access to the mkpasswd command.

Files accessed: File /etc/passwd /etc/passwd.pag /etc/passwd.dir passwdfile passwdfile.pag passwdfile.dir

The mkpasswd command may fail with a errno value of EFBIG if the password file is large (30,000 entries or more). This failure can be avoided by using the -s option to set a larger page block size for the hashed database.  

FLAGS

Specifies that each stored entry be listed on standard output Specifies the page block size to use in creating the hashed password database. The size argument is a value from 1 to 32, representing page block sizes from 1024 to 32768, respectively. The default page block size is 1024.  

EXAMPLES

If you have not used vipw to edit the /etc/passwd and wish to generate a hashed password database, enter the following: /usr/sbin/mkpasswd -v /etc/passwd An auxiliary version of the basic user database (/etc/passwd.dir and /etc/passwd.pag files) is created with a hashing algorithm.

To create a hashed password database with a page block size of 8192, enter the following: /usr/sbin/makepasswd -s 8 /etc/passwd

 

SECURITY NOTE

If enhanced security is running on your system, the passwords are stored in the extended attributes database. See the Security guide for more information about passwords in the enhanced security environment.  

RETURN VALUES

The mkpasswd command exits with a nonzero exit code if any errors are detected.  

ERRORS

If the mkpasswd request is not successful, the following error message is displayed: The passwdfile.dir and passwdfile.pag files already exist from a previous execution of the same mkpasswd command.  

FILES

Specifies the command path

 

RELATED INFORMATION

Commands: adduser(8), passwd(1), passwd(4), vipw(8)

Functions: getpwent(3), ndbm(3)

Manuals: Security delim off


 

Index

NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
FLAGS
EXAMPLES
SECURITY NOTE
RETURN VALUES
ERRORS
FILES
RELATED INFORMATION

This document was created by man2html, using the manual pages.
Time: 02:40:29 GMT, October 02, 2010