putuserpwx Subroutine

Purpose

Accesses the user authentication data.

Library

Security Library (libc.a)

Syntax

#include <userpw.h>

int putuserpwx  (Password)
struct userpwx *Password;

Description

The putuserpwx subroutine modifies user authentication information. It can be used with those administrative domains that support modifying the user's encrypted password with the putuserattrs subroutine. The chpassx subroutine must be used to modify authentication information for administrative domains that do not support that functionality.

The putuserpwx subroutine updates or creates password authentication data for the user defined in the Password parameter in the administrative domain that is specified. The password entry created by the putuserpwx subroutine is used only if there is an ! (exclamation point) in the user's password (S_PWD) attribute. The user application can use the putuserattrs subroutine to add an ! to this field.

The putuserpwx subroutine opens the authentication database read-write if no other access has taken place, but the program should call setpwdb (S_READ | S_WRITE) before calling the putuserpwx subroutine and endpwdb when access to the authentication information is no longer required.

The administrative domain specified in the upw_authdb field is set by the getuserpwx subroutine. It must be specified by the application program if the getuserpwx subroutine is not used to produce the Password parameter.

Parameters

Item Description
Password Specifies the password structure used to update the password information for this user. The fields in a userpwx structure are defined in the userpw.h file and contains the following members:
upw_name
Specifies the user's name.
upw_passwd
Specifies the user's encrypted password.
upw_lastupdate
Specifies the time, in seconds, since the epoch (that is, 00:00:00 GMT, 1 January 1970), when the password was last updated.
upw_flags
Specifies attributes of the password. This member is a bit mask of one or more of the following values, defined in the userpw.h file:
PW_NOCHECK
Specifies that new passwords need not meet password restrictions in effect for the system.
PW_ADMCHG
Specifies that the password was last set by an administrator and must be changed at the next successful use of the login or su command.
PW_ADMIN
Specifies that password information for this user can only be changed by the root user.
upw_authdb
Specifies the administrative domain containing the authentication data.

Security

Files accessed:

Item Description
Mode File
rw /etc/security/passwd

Return Values

If successful, the putuserpwx subroutine returns a value of 0. If the subroutine failed to update or create the password information, the putuserpwx subroutine returns a nonzero value.

Error Codes

The getuserpwx subroutine fails if the following value is true:

Item Description
ENOENT The user does not have an entry in the /etc/security/passwd file.

Subroutines invoked by the putuserpwx subroutine can also set errors.

Files

Item Description
/etc/security/passwd Contains user passwords.