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chsh(1) — Linux manual page

CHSH(1)                       User Commands                      CHSH(1)

NAME

       chsh - change login shell

SYNOPSIS

       chsh [options] [LOGIN]

DESCRIPTION

       The chsh command changes the user login shell. This determines
       the name of the user's initial login command. A normal user may
       only change the login shell for her own account; the superuser
       may change the login shell for any account.

OPTIONS

       The options which apply to the chsh command are:

       -h, --help
           Display help message and exit.

       -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.

       -s, --shell SHELL
           The name of the user's new login shell. Setting this field to
           blank causes the system to select the default login shell.

       If the -s option is not selected, chsh operates in an interactive
       fashion, prompting the user with the current login shell. Enter
       the new value to change the shell, or leave the line blank to use
       the current one. The current shell is displayed between a pair of
       [ ] marks.

NOTE

       The only restriction placed on the login shell is that the
       command name must be listed in /etc/shells, unless the invoker is
       the superuser, and then any value may be added. An account with a
       restricted login shell may not change her login shell. For this
       reason, placing /bin/rsh in /etc/shells is discouraged since
       accidentally changing to a restricted shell would prevent the
       user from ever changing her login shell back to its original
       value.

       For this reason, placing /bin/rsh in /etc/shells is discouraged
       since accidentally changing to a restricted shell would prevent
       the user from ever changing her login shell back to its original
       value.

FILES

       /etc/passwd
           User account information.

       /etc/shells
           List of valid login shells.

       /etc/login.defs
           Shadow password suite configuration.

SEE ALSO

       chfn(1), login.defs(5), passwd(5).

COLOPHON

       This page is part of the shadow-utils (utilities for managing
       accounts and shadow password files) project.  Information about
       the project can be found at 
       ⟨https://github.com/shadow-maint/shadow⟩.  If you have a bug
       report for this manual page, send it to
       pkg-shadow-devel@alioth-lists.debian.net.  This page was obtained
       from the project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨https://github.com/shadow-maint/shadow⟩ on 2024-06-15.  (At that
       time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
       repository was 2024-06-13.)  If you discover any rendering
       problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there
       is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
       corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

shadow-utils 4.14.0            06/15/2024                        CHSH(1)