PASSMASS(1) UNIX System V (7 October 1993) 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.
-telnet
Use telnet to access host.
-program
Next argument is taken as program to run to set
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
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PASSMASS(1) UNIX System V (7 October 1993) PASSMASS(1)
run as root).
-prompt
Next argument is taken as 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 number of seconds to wait for
responses. Default is 30 but some systems can be
much slower logging 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
It should be obvious that 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 where
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
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