00499@vax1.acs.udel.edu (WEAVERLING) (09/19/89)
A few weeks ago, I asked the net how I could pipe input into passwd. I needed to do this as a step in generating several hundred user accounts each quarter (I work at a college). I got several responses (thanks to all), and here is a summary. 1) Rob Barrell (rbarrell@ls.com) informed me that some vendors don't ship crypt and makekey cause of export restrictions. I called Prime and they shipped the "binary encryption files" to me. However, it still lacked makekey. 2) Writing a makekey is simple enough, however, before even worrying about it, Diomidis Spinellis from Munich sent me his own source (original code) for makekey. 3) Another soul from Toronto (sorry, misplaced your name) sent me an entire program to generate accounts, home dirs, etc. 4) Various others sent similar info and offers for help, which I am grateful for. In summary, passwd accepts input from /dev/tty which can't be redirected. Solutions all involved writing programs or scripts to manually insert the password into the proper field in /etc/passwd. This password is encrypted. One can generate an encrypted program using /usr/lib/makekey which accepts an eight char password and a two char "salt." (if password is less than 8 chars, pad with nulls, or user has to type the trailing spaces when entering login password.) Use the output of makekey and paste it into passwd. And the saga continues. I just got Sys V 3.1 which introduces the shadow file, and my darn DOS file server software (PC Interface by Locus) still looks in /etc/passwd for the password, so no one can log into PC Interface, "the fix is in the mail" Prime says... At least my passwd generating problems are solved. THANK YOU NET :-) Ken Weaverling +1 302 573 5460 | "OS/2 is like AIDS Delaware Technical & Community College | They say millions have it 00499@vax1.acs.udel.edu | You don't know anyone that's got it weave@pyr1.acs.udel.edu | And you pray to God you don't get it"