create user accounts in batch?

[Joe Alexander_1]

I need to set up 300 users and want to do this from a script. I can create the accounts with useradd, but I would like the password displayed so I can redirect and collect in an output file. Man page says useradd sends "random password" to stdout but it doesn't seem to. This is a trusted system.

[Steven E. Protter]

yes.

Make a list of users, one per line.


sammy
schmo
bagel

call it userlist

script:

while read -r username
do
useradd $username
passwd $username
<< place code here to set password>> without input.
done < userlist


You might wish to have a temporary password list.

SEP

[MattJ123]

I'd use expect for something like this.. Expect can take variables, and write files and would do exactly what you need.

Just to get you started..
Depot:
http://hpux.cs.utah.edu/hppd/hpux/Tcl/expect-5.42/

Small add user & change password script (untested):
#!/usr/local/bin/expect -f
set timeout -1
spawn $env(SHELL)
match_max 100000
expect -exact "# "
send -- "useradd username\r"
expect -exact "# "
send -- "passwd username\r"
expect -exact "Changing password for username"
New password: "
send -- "new\r"
expect -exact "\r
Re-enter new password: "
send -- "new\r"
expect -exact "\r
Passwd successfully changed\r
# "
expect eof

[Kent Ostby · Accepted solution]

For each user, do the following:

1) useradd (see above or man (1M)

2) /usr/sam/lbin/usermod.sam -F -p "" account_name

This will force the user to enter a new password when they log in the first time.

Best regards,

Kent M. Ostby

[Joe Alexander_1]

Thanks for the variety of solutions. The solution I chose was to use useradd to create the account, then use the UNSUPPORTED /usr/lbin command modprpw -x to set a temporary password, which is echoed to stdout.