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The Daily Insight

How do I find out when a Unix password expires?

Author

Sophia Hammond

Updated on March 05, 2026

How do I find out when a Unix password expires?

Linux check user password expiration using chage

  1. Open the terminal application.
  2. Type chage -l userName command to display password expiration information for Linux user account.
  3. The -l option passed to the change show account aging information.
  4. Check tom user’s password expiry time, run: sudo chage -l tom.

How do I find out when my password expires?

Checking Password Expiration Date with the Net User command

  1. Open the search bar and type “cmd” or press the “Windows logo + R” keys to open the Run utility, and type “cmd.”
  2. On a command prompt, use the “net user” with the following additional parameters: net user [username] [/DOMAIN] , where:

How do I set an expiration date password?

In the menu on the left, navigate to Computer Configuration>Windows Settings>Security Settings>Account Policies>Password Policy, and double-click “Maximum Password Age.” Change the value from “42” to your preferred length of days, and then click “OK” to save the setting.

What is password aging in Unix?

Password aging is another technique used by system administrators to defend against bad passwords within an organization. Password aging means that after a set amount of time (usually 90 days) the user is prompted to create a new password.

How can extend expiry date in Linux?

“chage” is the command to list & change the user password aging information for the change password user account. Use the passwd command chage to change the number of days between user password expiry and the current date. It’s easy to access the chage command line to utilize it in Linux.

How do I extend password expiry date in Linux?

Using chage

  1. -E Set the expire date for a user password.
  2. -I Set the number of inactive days allowed, after a password expires, before the account is locked.
  3. -l List the account aging information.
  4. -m Set the minimum number of days allowed between password changes.

What is password expiration?

Password expiration is a dying concept. Essentially, it’s when an organization requires their workforce to change their passwords every 60, 90 or XX number of days.

Should passwords expire?

The US-Based National Institute of Standards and Technology outlined in NIST 800-63b also updated the NIST password guidelines to reflect the same sentiment; that passwords shouldn’t periodically expire. Both NIST and Microsoft are highly influential in the cybersecurity guidelines landscape.

How do you set password never expire in Linux for user?

To turn off the password expiration for an user account, set the following:

  1. -m 0 will set the minimum number of days between password change to 0.
  2. -M 99999 will set the maximum number of days between password change to 99999.
  3. -I -1 (number minus one) will set the “Password inactive” to never.

How do I activate an expired Linux account?

  1. To disable / lock the user account use below command: sudo passwd -l [user_name] e.g. sudo passwd -l samual.
  2. To put an expire date to an user account so that it automatically gets disabled / locked.
  3. To re-enable a disabled user, issue the passwd command with the -u option.

How often should password expire?

In this day and age, changing passwords every 90 days gives you the illusion of stronger security while inflicting needless pain, cost, and ultimately additional risk to your organization.

Can a password expire?

By default, passwords are set to never expire for your organization. Current research strongly indicates that mandated password changes do more harm than good. They drive users to choose weaker passwords, re-use passwords, or update old passwords in ways that are easily guessed by hackers.