PASSMASS(1) - man - phpman

PASSMASS(1)                            General Commands Manual                           PASSMASS(1)



NAME
       passmass - change password on multiple machines

SYNOPSIS
       passmass [ host1 host2 host3 ...  ]

INTRODUCTION
       Passmass  changes  a password on multiple machines.  If you have accounts on several machines
       that do not share password databases, Passmass can help you keep them all in sync.  This,  in
       turn, will make it easier to change them more frequently.

       When  Passmass  runs,  it  asks you for the old and new passwords.  (If you are changing root
       passwords and have equivalencing, the old password is not used and may be omitted.)

       Passmass understands the "usual" conventions.  Additional arguments may be used  for  tuning.
       They  affect all hosts which follow until another argument overrides it.  For example, if you
       are known as "libes" on host1 and host2, but "don" on host3, you would say:

            passmass host1 host2 -user don host3

       Arguments are:

              -user
                  User whose password will be changed.  By default, the current user is used.


              -rlogin
                  Use rlogin to access host.  (default)


              -slogin
                  Use slogin to access host.


              -ssh
                  Use ssh to access host.


              -telnet
                  Use telnet to access host.


              -program

                  Next argument is a program to run to  set  the  password.   Default  is  "passwd".
                  Other common choices are "yppasswd" and "set passwd" (e.g., VMS hosts).  A program
                  name such as "password fred" can be used to create entries for new accounts  (when
                  run as root).


              -prompt
                  Next argument is a prompt suffix pattern.  This allows the script to know when the
                  shell is prompting.  The default is "# " for root and "% " for non-root accounts.


              -timeout
                  Next argument is the number of seconds to wait for responses.  Default is  30  but
                  some systems can be much slower logging in.


              -su

                  Next  argument is 1 or 0.  If 1, you are additionally prompted for a root password
                  which is used to su after logging in.  root's password is changed rather than  the
                  user's.  This is useful for hosts which do not allow root to log in.


HOW TO USE
       The  best  way  to  run  Passmass  is to put the command in a one-line shell script or alias.
       Whenever you get a new account on a new machine, add the appropriate arguments  to  the  com‐
       mand.  Then run it whenever you want to change your passwords on all the hosts.


CAVEATS
       Using  the same password on multiple hosts carries risks.  In particular, if the password can
       be stolen, then all of your accounts are at risk.  Thus, you should not use Passmass in situ‐
       ations  where  your  password is visible, such as across a network which hackers are known to
       eavesdrop.

       On the other hand, if you have enough accounts with different passwords, you may end up writ‐
       ing  them down somewhere - and that can be a security problem.  Funny story: my college room‐
       mate had an 11"x13" piece of paper on which he had listed accounts and passwords  all  across
       the Internet.  This was several years worth of careful work and he carried it with him every‐
       where he went.  Well one day, he forgot to remove it from his jeans, and we found a perfectly
       blank sheet of paper when we took out the wash the following day!

SEE ALSO
       "Exploring  Expect:  A  Tcl-Based  Toolkit for Automating Interactive Programs" by Don Libes,
       O'Reilly and Associates, January 1995.

AUTHOR
       Don Libes, National Institute of Standards and Technology



                                           7 October 1993                                PASSMASS(1)