Scripting Password Changes

[Jason Berendsen]

We have a very small user community and want a way to have a user change his password easily on all boxes. Is there a way to script this or do I have to set up NIS or NIS+?

Thanks in advance.

Jason

[Bill McNAMARA_1 · Accepted solution]

Have a look at this link:

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,1150,0xa9a3e7e60861d511abcd0090277a778c,00.html

[Chris Calabrese]

Why don't you want to use NIS or NIS+? I can't imagine anything you setup actually being easier to build/maintain when all is said and done. If security is the issue, NIS+ can be setup quite securely.

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Hi Jason,

If it were me, I would implement NIS+ in a heartbeat. It's really quite simple and it does much more than passwords. It unifies your group files, /etc/services, hostnames (if you like) and if you use the automounter it allows you to maintain the automount maps in one place.

I find this approach to be much more robust and safe than any rdist or remsh schemes. It is essential that you also have at least one slave NIS+ server.

In my environment, I created a replacement for the yppasswd command to allow extra arguments which enabled CGI code to manipulate the passwd maps. My users can now set their password using their browser. Life is simple.

My 3 cents worth, Clay