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

Tralemonkey's solution almost worked for me as well ... but not quite. I ended up doing it this way:

echo -n '$#@password@#$' | passwd myusername --stdin

2 key details his solution didn't include, the -n keeps echo from adding a \n to the password that is getting encrypted, and the single quotes protect the contents from being interpreted by the shell (bash) in my case.

BTW I ran this command as root on a CentOS 5.6 system in case anyone is wondering.

Answer 2

I've tested in my own shell script.

• $new_username means newly created user
• $new_password means newly password

For CentOS

echo "$new_password" | passwd --stdin "$new_username"

For Debian/Ubuntu

echo "$new_username:$new_password" | chpasswd

For OpenSUSE

echo -e "$new_password\n$new_password" | passwd "$new_username"

Answer 3

The solution that works on both Debian and Red Hat. Depends on perl, uses sha-512 hashes:

cat userpassadd
    #!/usr/bin/env bash

    salt=$(cat /dev/urandom | tr -dc A-Za-z0-9/_- | head -c16)
    useradd -p $(perl -e "print crypt('$2', '\$6\$' . '$salt' . '\$')") $1

Usage:

userpassadd jim jimslongpassword

It can effectively be used as a one-liner, but you'll have to specify the password, salt and username at the right places yourself:

useradd -p $(perl -e "print crypt('pass', '\$6\$salt\$')") username

Answer 4

I liked Tralemonkey's approach of echo thePassword | passwd theUsername --stdin though it didn't quite work for me as written. This however worked for me.

echo -e "$password\n$password\n" | sudo passwd $user

-e is to recognize \n as new line.

sudo is root access for Ubuntu.

The double quotes are to recognize $ and expand the variables.

The above command passes the password and a new line, two times, to passwd, which is what passwd requires.

If not using variables, I think this probably works.

echo -e 'password\npassword\n' | sudo passwd username

Single quotes should suffice here.

Answer 5

For RedHat / CentOS here's the code that creates a user, adds the passwords and makes the user a sudoer:

#!/bin/sh
echo -n "Enter username: "
read uname

echo -n "Enter password: "
read -s passwd

adduser "$uname"
echo $uname:$passwd | sudo chpasswd

gpasswd wheel -a $uname

Answer 6

The following works for me and tested on Ubuntu 14.04. It is a one liner that does not require any user input.

sudo useradd -p $(openssl passwd -1 $PASS) $USERNAME

Taken from @Tralemonkey