How to manage password aging in Solaris, AIX, and Linux

Creating an account that has a password that never expires is sometimes necessary for specific users, such as those for monitoring or security scanning, or even for headless accounts.

In this article we'll show how to perform this task in Solaris, AIX, and in Linux.

Solaris

• Firstly, lets unlock the account:

  passwd -d <username>

• Turn off password aging:

  passwd -x -1 <username>

• Verify config:

  passwd -s <username>

  For example:

  root@solaris# passwd -s sysadm
  sysadm  PS    03/28/14     7    28     7

  The above output shows the date the password was last changed, the max number of days between password chages, the number of days for warning a user before the password expires.

AIX

• Unlock the account:

  chuser account_locked=false <username>

• Turn off password aging:

  chuser maxage=0 <username>

• Verify config:

  lsuser -f <username> | fgrep expires

Linux

• Unlock the account:

  passwd -u <username>

• Turn off password aging:

  chage -m 0 -M 99999 -I -1 -E -1 <username>

• Verify config:

  chage -l <username>