Dr Andrew Scott G7VAV

MBCS, MIET, Member ACM, Member IEEE

Senior Lecturer
School of Computing
and Communications

D35 InfoLab21
Lancaster University
Lancaster, LA1 4WA
United Kingdom

August 2025
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UNIX_CHKPWD

Section: Linux-PAM Manual (8)
Updated: 06/04/2011
Index Return to Main Contents

NAME

unix_chkpwd - Helper binary that verifies the password of the current user

SYNOPSIS

unix_chkpwd [...]

DESCRIPTION

unix_chkpwd

is a helper program for the pam_unix module that verifies the password of the current user. It also checks password and account expiration dates in shadow. It is not intended to be run directly from the command line and logs a security violation if done so.

It is typically installed setuid root or setgid shadow.

The interface of the helper - command line options, and input/output data format are internal to the pam_unix module and it should not be called directly from applications.

AUTHOR

Written by Andrew Morgan and other various people.

for client (none)

http://www.andrew-scott.uk/

Andrew Scott