CHFN

Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: November 2015
Page Index

NAME

chfn - change your finger information

SYNOPSIS

chfn [-f full-name] [-o office] [-p office-phone] [-h home-phone] [-u] [-v] [username]

DESCRIPTION

chfn is used to change your finger information. This information is stored in the /etc/passwd file, and is displayed by the finger program. The Linux finger command will display four pieces of information that can be changed by chfn: your real name, your work room and phone, and your home phone.

Any of the four pieces of information can be specified on the command line. If no information is given on the command line, chfn enters interactive mode.

In interactive mode, chfn will prompt for each field. At a prompt, you can enter the new information, or just press return to leave the field unchanged. Enter the keyword "none" to make the field blank.

chfn supports non-local entries (kerberos, LDAP, etc.) if linked with libuser, otherwise use ypchfn, lchfn or any other implementation for non-local entries.

OPTIONS

-f, --full-name full-name: Specify your real name.
-o, --office office: Specify your office room number.
-p, --office-phone office-phone: Specify your office phone number.
-h, --home-phone home-phone: Specify your home phone number.
-u, --help: Display help text and exit.
-v, --version: Display version information and exit.

CONFIG FILE ITEMS

chfn reads the /etc:/login.defs(5) configuration file. Note that the configuration file could be distributed with another package (e.g., shadow-utils). The following configuration items are relevant for chfn(1):

CHFN_RESTRICT string

Indicate which fields are changeable by chfn.

The boolean setting "yes" means that only the Office, Office Phone and Home Phone fields are changeable, and boolean setting "no" means that also the Full Name is changeable.

Another way to specify changeable fields is by abbreviations: f = Full Name, r = Office (room), w = Office (work) Phone, h = Home Phone. For example, CHFN_RESTRICT "wh" allows changing work and home phone numbers.

If CHFN_RESTRICT is undefined, then all finger information is read-only. This is the default.

EXIT STATUS

Returns 0 if operation was successful, 1 if operation failed or command syntax was not valid.

AUTHORS

Salvatore Valente <svalente@mit.edu>

AVAILABILITY

The chfn command is part of the util-linux package and is available from https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.