4.2BSD/usr/man/man1/chfn.1

.TH CHFN 1 "17 March 1982 deprecated"
.UC 4
.SH NAME
chfn \- change finger entry
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B chfn
[loginname]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.I Chfn
is used to change information about users.  This information is used
by the finger program, among others.
It consists of the user's
"real life" name, office room number, office phone number, and home
phone number.
.I Chfn
prompts the user for each field.
Included in the prompt is a default value,
which is enclosed between brackets.
The default value is accepted simply by typing <return>.
To enter a blank field,
type the word 'none'.
Below is a sample run:
.IP
.B "Name [Biff Studsworth II]:"
.br
.B "Room number (Exs: 597E or 197C) []:"
521E
.br
.B "Office Phone (Ex: 1632) []:"
1863
.br
.B "Home Phone (Ex: 987532) [5771546]:"
none
.sp
.PP
.I Chfn
allows phone numbers to be entered with or without hyphens.
Because 
.I finger
only knows about UCB extensions,
.I chfn
will insist upon a four digit number (after the hyphens are removed) 
for office phone numbers.
Also, room numbers must be in Evans or Cory;
again, this is because of 
.IR finger .
.PP
It is a good idea to run finger after running
.I chfn
to make sure everything is the way you want it.
.PP
The optional argument
.B loginname
is used to change another person's finger information.
This can only be done by the super-user.
.SH FILES
/etc/passwd, /etc/ptmp
.SH SEE\ ALSO
finger(1), passwd(5)
.SH BUGS
The encoding of the office and extension information is installation dependent.
.PP
For historical reasons, the user's name, etc are stored in the passwd file.
This is a bad place to store the information. 
Rumors are that a data base is being developed to store this information,
but don't hold your breath.
.PP
Because two users may try to write the passwd file at once, a synchronization
method was developed.
On rare occasions, a message that the password file
is "busy" will be printed.
In this case,
.I chfn
sleeps for a while and then tries to write to the passwd file again.