How to automatically add user account AND password

Question

I need to have the ability to create user accounts on my Linux (Fedora 10) and automatically assign a password via a bash script(or otherwise, if need be).

It's easy to create the user via Bash e.g.:

[whoever@server ]#  /usr/sbin/useradd newuser

Is it possible to assign a password in Bash, something functionally similar to this, but automatically:

[whoever@server ]# passwd newuser
Changing password for user testpass.
New UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password: 
passwd: all authentication tokens updated successfully.
[whoever@server ]#

Answer 1

You can use the -p option.

useradd -p encrypted_password newuser

Unfortunately, this does require you to hash the password yourself (where passwd does that for you). Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a standard utility to hash some data so you'll have to write that yourself.

Here's a little Python script I whipped up to do the encryption for you. Assuming you called it pcrypt, you would then write your above command line to:

useradd -p $(pcrypt ${passwd}) newuser

A couple of warnings to be aware of.

1. While pcrypt is running, the plaintext will be visible to any user via the ps command.
2. pcrypt uses the old style crypt function - if you are using something more moderns like an MD5 hash, you'll need to change pcrypt.

and here's pcrypt:

#!/usr/bin/env python

import crypt
import sys
import random

saltchars = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789"

def salt():
    return random.choice(saltchars) + random.choice(saltchars)

def hash(plain):
    return crypt.crypt(arg, salt())

if __name__ == "__main__":
    random.seed()
    for arg in sys.argv[1:]:
        sys.stdout.write("%s\n" % (hash(arg),))

Answer 2

You could also use chpasswd:

echo username:new_password | chpasswd

so, you change password for user username to new_password.

Answer 3

{ echo $password; echo $password; } | passwd $username 

Answer 4

You can use expect in your bash script.

From http://www.seanodonnell.com/code/?id=21

#!/usr/bin/expect 
######################################### 
#$ file: htpasswd.sh 
#$ desc: Automated htpasswd shell script 
######################################### 
#$ 
#$ usage example: 
#$ 
#$ ./htpasswd.sh passwdpath username userpass 
#$ 
###################################### 

set htpasswdpath [lindex $argv 0] 
set username [lindex $argv 1] 
set userpass [lindex $argv 2] 

# spawn the htpasswd command process 
spawn htpasswd $htpasswdpath $username 

# Automate the 'New password' Procedure 
expect "New password:" 
send "$userpass\r" 

expect "Re-type new password:" 
send "$userpass\r"

Answer 5

From IBM (https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/ssw_aix_61/com.ibm.aix.cmds1/chpasswd.htm):

Create a text file, say text.txt and populate it with user:password pairs as follows:

user1:password1
user2:password2
...
usern:passwordn

Save the text.txt file, and run

cat text.txt | chpassword

That's it. The solution is (a) scalable and (b) does not involve printing passwords on the command line.

Answer 6

Single liner to create a sudo user with home directory and password.

useradd -m -p $(openssl passwd -1 ${PASSWORD}) -s /bin/bash -G sudo ${USERNAME}