pwconv(1M)

pwconv -- install and update /etc/shadow with information from /etc/passwd

Synopsis

pwconv

Description

The pwconv command creates and updates /etc/shadow with information from /etc/passwd.

If the /etc/shadow file does not exist, pwconv creates /etc/shadow with information from /etc/passwd. The command populates /etc/shadow with the user's login name, password, and password aging information. If password aging information does not exist in /etc/passwd for a given user, none is added to /etc/shadow. However, the last changed information is always updated.

If the /etc/shadow file does exist, the following tasks are performed:

Entries that are in the /etc/passwd file and not in the /etc/shadow file are added to the /etc/shadow file.
Entries that are in the /etc/shadow file and not in the /etc/passwd file are removed from /etc/shadow.
Password attributes (for example, password and aging information) in an /etc/passwd entry are moved to the corresponding entry in /etc/shadow.

The pwconv program is a privileged system command that cannot be executed by ordinary users.

Files

/etc/passwd
/etc/shadow
/etc/opasswd
/etc/oshadow

Diagnostics

The pwconv command exits with 0 on success, or non-zero on one of the following error conditions:

Permission denied.
Invalid command syntax.
Unexpected failure. Conversion not done.
Unexpected failure. Password file(s) missing.
Password file(s) busy. Try again later.

References

passwd(1)