chag

chage Check Password

The command chage -l can be used to show the status of a user's password protection. Let's say you wanted to check the status of diane's password.

chage -l diane

Minimum: 0
Maximum: 20
Warning: 7
Inactive: -1
Last Change: May, 01, 2002
Password Expires: May 21, 2002
Password Inactive: Never
Account Expires: May 30, 2002

Expire User Accounts

Using the expire option will allow the administrator to lock down an account without destroying the data so that it may be available for a short time.

Example:

chage -E /06/08/03 mike

This option is valuable for temporary accounts as well.

A directory could be created to hold the user's files for a time.
Example:

mkdir /mikeold: chmod 000 /mikeold

This will protect the data from being changed.