The options which apply to the chage command are:

-d, --lastday LAST_DAY

Set the number of days since January 1st, 1970 when the password was last changed. The date may also be expressed in the format YYYY-MM-DD (or the format more commonly used in your area). If the LAST_DAY is set to 0 the user is forced to change his password on the next log on.

-E, --expiredate EXPIRE_DATE

Set the date or number of days since January 1, 1970 on which the users account will no longer be accessible. The date may also be expressed in the format YYYY-MM-DD (or the format more commonly used in your area). A user whose account is locked must contact the system administrator before being able to use the system again.

For example the following can be used to set an account to expire in 180 days:

.RS 4

	    chage -E $(date -d +180days +%Y-%m-%d)
	  

.RE

Passing the number -1 as the EXPIRE_DATE will remove an account expiration date.

-h, --help

Display help message and exit.

-i, --iso8601

When printing dates, use YYYY-MM-DD format.

-I, --inactive INACTIVE

Set the number of days of inactivity after a password has expired before the account is locked. The INACTIVE option is the number of days of inactivity. A user whose account is locked must contact the system administrator before being able to use the system again.

Passing the number -1 as the INACTIVE will remove an accounts inactivity.

-l, --list

Show account aging information.

-m, --mindays MIN_DAYS

Set the minimum number of days between password changes to MIN_DAYS. A value of zero for this field indicates that the user may change their password at any time.

-M, --maxdays MAX_DAYS

Set the maximum number of days during which a password is valid. When MAX_DAYS plus LAST_DAY is less than the current day, the user will be required to change their password before being able to use their account. This occurrence can be planned for in advance by use of the -W option, which provides the user with advance warning.

Passing the number -1 as MAX_DAYS will remove checking a passwords validity.

-R, --root CHROOT_DIR

Apply changes in the CHROOT_DIR directory and use the configuration files from the CHROOT_DIR directory. Only absolute paths are supported.

-W, --warndays WARN_DAYS

Set the number of days of warning before a password change is required. The WARN_DAYS option is the number of days prior to the password expiring that a user will be warned their password is about to expire.

If none of the options are selected, chage operates in an interactive fashion, prompting the user with the current values for all of the fields. Enter the new value to change the field, or leave the line blank to use the current value. The current value is displayed between a pair of [ ] marks.

The chage program requires a shadow password file to be available.

The chage program will report only the information from the shadow password file. This implies that configuration from other sources (e.g. LDAP or empty password hash field from the passwd file) that affect the users login will not be shown in the chage output.

The chage program will also not report any inconsistency between the shadow and passwd files (e.g. missing x in the passwd file). The pwck can be used to check for this kind of inconsistencies.

The chage command is restricted to the root user, except for the -l option, which may be used by an unprivileged user to determine when their password or account is due to expire.

The following configuration variables in /etc/login.defs change the behavior of this tool:

/etc/passwd

User account information.

/etc/shadow

Secure user account information.

The chage command exits with the following values:

0

success

1

permission denied

2

invalid command syntax

15

cant find the shadow password file