Mac OS X Tiger in a Nutshell

Name

chkpasswd

Synopsis

chkpasswd [-c] [-i infosystem] [-l location] [username]

Useful for scripts, this prompts for a password which is then compared against the appropriate directory service for the user specified. If the password is correct, chkpasswd returns 0; otherwise, it returns 1, and the string “Sorry” is printed to standard error.

Options

-c

Compare user input with the password hash directly, rather than running it through the crypt algorithm first.

-i

Specify the directory service to use, which may be file, netinfo, nis, or opendirectory.

-l

Depending on the directory service being used, it’s either a file (defaults to /etc/master.passwd), a NetInfo domain or server/tag combo, a NIS domain, or an Open Directory node (like /NetInfo/root).

username

Designate whose password is checked. It defaults to that of the user running the command.