---
name: "login_passwd"
section: "8"
platform: "openbsd"
package: "man"
version: "8.0-current-20261101"
release: "OpenBSD 8.0-current (2026-11-01)"
platforms: ["openbsd"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/login_passwd"
---

# login\_passwd(8)

provide standard password authentication type

## NAME

**login\_passwd** – provide standard password authentication type

## SYNOPSIS

**login\_passwd** \[**-s** *service*\] \[**-v** **wheel**=**yes**\|**no**\] \[**-v** **lastchance**=**yes**\|**no**\] *user* \[*class*\]

## DESCRIPTION

The **login\_passwd** utility is called by [login(1)](/login/1.md), [su(1)](/su/1.md), [ftpd(8)](/ftpd/8.md), and others to authenticate the *user* with passwd-style authentication.

The *user* argument is the login name of the user to be authenticated.

The *service* argument specifies which protocol to use with the invoking program. The allowed protocols are *login*, *challenge*, and *response*. (The *challenge* protocol is silently ignored but will report success as passwd-style authentication is not challenge-response based).

If the **wheel** argument is specified and is not set to **yes**, then the user will be rejected as not being in group “wheel”. This is used by [su(1)](/su/1.md).

If the **lastchance** argument is specified and is equal to **yes**, then if the user's password has expired, and it has not been expired longer than “password-dead” seconds (see [login.conf(5)](/login.conf/5.md)), the user will be able to log in one last time to change the password.

**login\_passwd** will prompt the user for a password and report back to the invoking program whether or not the authentication was successful.

## SEE ALSO

[login(1)](/login/1.md), [passwd(1)](/passwd/1.md), [su(1)](/su/1.md), [login.conf(5)](/login.conf/5.md), [ftpd(8)](/ftpd/8.md)