How do I change a users default shell in OSX?

Question

What is the correct OSX way of changing a users default shell? When I googled for it I found several references to an application called NetInfo Manager but I couldn't find it on my system. There were also references to a command line version called niutil which I didn't find either.

Answer 1

for <=10.4 - netinfo manager, /users/whoever/shell

for 10.5=> - SysPrefs, accounts, control-click on user, select advanced options, edit login shell field.

Answer 2

sudo chsh shell user

where shell is the one you want for that user.

man chsh

for more examples.

Answer 3

NetInfo has been replaced by Directory Services (dscl) and it can be noted the default shell for Mac OS X since 10.3 has been bash. Prior to that it was tcsh.

If you need to do this from the command line (eg. for pushing via ARD or remotely via SSH) you can run:

sudo dscl localhost -change /Local/Default/Users/USERNAME shell OLD_SHELL NEW_SHELL
#In Use:
sudo dscl localhost -change /Local/Default/Users/chealion shell /bin/bash /bin/zsh

If you're not sure of the current shell you can run:

sudo dscl localhost -read /Local/Default/Users/USERNAME shell

If the user is not a local user the path will simply change and if necessary you would change localhost to the name of your Open Directory Server. (Assuming it runs 10.5).

The info is stored in .plists (xml) in /private/var/db/dslocal/ - you don't want to edit the plist files by hand however.