passmass

PASSMASS(1)							  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 pass-
       word 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 cur-
		  rent user is used.


	      -rlogin
		  Use rlogin to access host.  (default)


	      -slogin
		  Use slogin 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 log-
		  ging 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 particu-
       lar, 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 pass-
       words, 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 Pro-
       grams" by Don Libes, O’Reilly and Associates, January 1995.

AUTHOR
       Don Libes, National Institute of Standards and Technology



				7 October 1993			  PASSMASS(1)