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Managing passwords and 
password policies
In this chapter, we've already covered a bit of password management, since 
I've given you a few examples of the 
passwd
 command. If you recall, the 
passwd
 
command allows us to change the password of the currently logged-in user. In 
addition, using 
passwd
 as 
root
 (and supplying a username) allows us to change the 
password for any user account on our system. But that's not all this command can 
do.
Locking and unlocking user accounts
One thing I've neglected to mention regarding the 
passwd
 command is the fact that 
you can use it to lock and unlock a user's account. There are many reasons why you 
may want to do this. For instance, if a user is going on vacation or extended leave, 
perhaps you'd want to lock their account so that it cannot be used while they are 
away. After all, the fewer active accounts, the smaller your attack surface. To lock an 
account, use the 
-l
 option:
sudo passwd -l

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Chapter 2