The
vipw
utility edits the password file after setting the appropriate locks,
and does any necessary processing after the password file is unlocked.
If the password file is already locked for editing by another user,
vipw
will ask you
to try again later.
The default editor for
vipw
is
vi(1).
When run without options,
vipw
will work with the password files in
/etc.
The
-d
option may be used to specify an alternative
directory
to work with.
The
vipw
utility performs a number of consistency checks on the password entries,
and will not allow a password file with a
"mangled"
entry to be
installed.
If
vipw
rejects the new password file, the user is prompted to re-enter
the edit session.
Once the information has been verified,
vipw
uses
pwd_mkdb(8)
to update the user database.
This is run in the background, and,
at very large sites could take several minutes.
Until this update
is completed, the password file is unavailable for other updates
and the new information is not available to programs.
