Changing an AIX password via script?

Question

I am trying to change a password of a user via script. I cannot use sudo as there is a feature that requires the user to change the password again if another user changes th

Answer 1

Use GNU passwd stdin flag.

From the man page:

   --stdin
          This option is used to indicate that passwd should read the new password from standard input, which can be a pipe.

NOTE: Only for root user.

Example

$ adduser foo 
$ echo "NewPass" |passwd foo --stdin
Changing password for user foo.
passwd: all authentication tokens updated successfully.

Alternatively you can use expect, this simple code will do the trick:

#!/usr/bin/expect
spawn passwd foo
expect "password:"
send "Xcv15kl\r"
expect "Retype new password:"
send "Xcv15kl\r"
interact

Results

$ ./passwd.xp 
spawn passwd foo
Changing password for user foo.
New password: 
Retype new password: 
passwd: all authentication tokens updated successfully.

Answer 2

You can try:

echo "USERNAME:NEWPASSWORD" | chpasswd

Answer 3

In addition to the other suggestions, you can also achieve this using a HEREDOC.

In your immediate case, this might look like:

$ /usr/bin/passwd root <<EOF
test
test
EOF

Answer 4

Just this

passwd <<EOF
oldpassword
newpassword
newpassword
EOF

Actual output from ubuntu machine (sorry no AIX available to me):

user@host:~$ passwd <<EOF
oldpassword
newpassword
newpassword
EOF

Changing password for user.
(current) UNIX password: Enter new UNIX password: Retype new UNIX password: 
passwd: password updated successfully
user@host:~$

Answer 5

You need echo -e for the newline characters to take affect

you wrote

echo "oldpassword\nnewpasswd123\nnewpasswd123" | passwd user

you should try

echo -e "oldpassword\nnewpasswd123\nnewpasswd123" | passwd user

more than likely, you will not need the oldpassword\n portion of that command, you should just need the two new passwords. Don't forget to use single quotes around exclamation points!

echo -e "new"'!'"passwd123\nnew"'!'"passwd123" | passwd user

Answer 6

#!/usr/bin/python

import random
import string
import smtplib
import sys
import os
from subprocess import call
import socket

user = sys.argv[1]
receivers = ["%s@domain.com" %user]

'''This will generate a 30 character random password'''
def genrandpwd():
        return  ''.join(random.SystemRandom().choice(string.ascii_lowercase + string.digits + string.ascii_uppercase + string.punctuation) for _ in range(30))

def change_passwd(user, password):
        p = os.popen("/usr/bin/passwd %s" %user, "w")
        p.write(password)
        p.write("\n")
        p.write(password)
    p.close()

def chage(user):
        agepasswd = call(["/usr/bin/chage", "-d", "0", "%s" %user])

def mailpwd(user, password):
        sender = "admin@%s" %socket.gethostname()
        subj = "!!!IMPORTANT!!!, Unix password changed for user %s" %user
        text = "The password for the %s user has changed, the new password is:\n\n %s \n\n Note: The system will force to change the password upon initial login. Please use the password provided in the mail as your current password and type the password of your choice as the New password" %(user, password)
        message = message = 'Subject: %s\n\n%s' % (subj, text)
        smtpObj = smtplib.SMTP('mailrelay-server.domain.com')
        smtpObj.sendmail(sender, receivers, message)
        smtpObj.quit()

def main():
        newpwd = genrandpwd()
        change_passwd(user, newpwd)
        chage(user)
        mailpwd(user, newpwd)

if __name__ == "__main__":
        main()