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 command. 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 situations 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 writing them down somewhere - and
that can be a security
problem. Funny story: my college roommate 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
everywhere 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
