RE: shadow passwd

[dempa]

Semi-untested code follows:

my $plaintext = "tstpw82!";
srand(time() ^ ($$ + ($$ << 15)));
my @chars = ('0'..'9','a'..'z','A'..'Z','!','+');
my $salt = $chars[int(rand(scalar @chars))] . $chars[int(rand(scalar @
+chars))];
print crypt($plaintext,$salt) . "\n";

This is just for generating the encrypted version of the plaintext password. Maybe you already knew that, but here it is anyway.

To update shadow is a mission of it's own. Most of the time when I've done it in scripts, I use the following method:

• Create backup of shadow file (IMPORTANT!)
• Read shadow file into memory
• Do substitutions or additions
• Write new shadow file

Something like that... I'm sure some people will have plenty of stuff to say about this approach, but it works for me and I manage over 8000 user accounts. :)

... and no! That's not my real password in $plaintext! :)

update: In light of what cianoz wrote below, I must say that I was a bit one-track minded there. My post is valid for Solaris systems. :) I don't know if it's possible to implement MD5 passwords with some sort of PAM, and there's no such commmand as chpassword (I think).

[Anonymous Monk]

Thanks for this. I'm using Linux RH 6.2 which uses Crypt. I've been told we would use MD5 but some of our old Irix machines won't with it, so Crypt it is. Thanks again!