Force a password change on the next login

This article describes how to make users change their password on their next login.

You can do this by using either the chage (change age) or passwd (password) command.

chage

The following example demonstrates creating a user and using the chage command to force a password change:

Create user:
~]# useradd testuser1
[root@localhost ~]# passwd testuser1
Changing password for user testuser1.
New password: 
Retype new password: 
passwd: all authentication tokens updated successfully.

Set expiration:
~]# chage -d 0 testuser1

Testing:
~]$ su - testuser1
Password: 
You are required to change your password immediately (administrator enforced)
Current password: 
New password: 
Retype new password: 
[testuser1@localhost ~]$ 

passwd

The following example demonstrates creating a user and using only the passwd command to force a password change:

Create user:
~]# useradd testuser2
~]# passwd testuser2
Changing password for user testuser2.
New password: 
Retype new password: 
passwd: all authentication tokens updated successfully.

Set expiration:
[root@localhost ~]# passwd -e testuser2
Expiring password for user testuser2.
passwd: Success

Testing:
~]$ su - testuser2
Password: 
You are required to change your password immediately (administrator enforced)
Current password: 
New password: 
Retype new password: 
[testuser2@localhost ~]$ 

Either option forcing users to change their password the next time they log in.