The passwd command allows a user to change his or her individual password. The vpasswd command is a super command that allows any user in the sysadmin group to change the password of another user, even if the user’s current password is unknown. vpasswd cannot be used to change the password for the administrative user or the Superuser.
When changing an account password, the password is changed for the user’s email, FTP, Samba, and shell access, if applicable.
Example 1: using passwd to change your own account password
A user can change the password for his or her individual account by using the passwd command as shown below:
> passwd
Changing local password for user.
Old password:
New password:
Retype new password:
passwd: updating the database...
passwd: done
Users who attempt to change the password for another user via the passwd command receive the following error message:
passwd: Permission denied
Example 2: using vpasswd to change the account password for another user.
Members of the sysadmin group can change their own password or the password of another user by issuing the vpasswd command as shown below, where someuser can be any user on the Freedom account:
> vpasswd someuser
Changing local password for someuser.
New password:
Retype new password:
vpasswd: updating the database...
vpasswd: done
Note that the vpasswd command does not prompt you for the old (current) password. Users who attempt to issue the vpasswd command but are not members of the sysadmin group receive the following error:
super: vpasswd - Permission denied to user username