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chsh(1) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | NOTE | FILES | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON 

CHSH(1)                       User Commands                       CHSH(1)

NAME         top

       chsh - change login shell

SYNOPSIS         top


       chsh [options] [LOGIN]

DESCRIPTION         top

       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         top

       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. No SELINUX support.

       -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         top

       The only restriction placed on the login shell is that the command
       name must be listed in /etc/shells.

       If the invoker is the superuser any value may be added regardless
       what is defined in the configuration files. 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.

FILES         top

       /etc/passwd
           User account information.

       /etc/shells
           List of valid login shells.

       /etc/login.defs
           Shadow password suite configuration.

SEE ALSO         top

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

COLOPHON         top

       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 tarball shadow-4.19.0.tar fetched from
       ⟨https://github.com/shadow-maint/shadow/releases⟩ on 2026-05-24.
       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 4.19.0             05/24/2026                        CHSH(1)

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