1PASSMASS(1)                 General Commands Manual                PASSMASS(1)
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NAME

6       passmass - change password on multiple machines
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SYNOPSIS

9       passmass [ host1 host2 host3 ...  ]
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INTRODUCTION

12       Passmass changes a password on multiple machines.  If you have accounts
13       on several machines that do not share password databases, Passmass  can
14       help  you keep them all in sync.  This, in turn, will make it easier to
15       change them more frequently.
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17       When Passmass runs, it asks you for the old and new passwords.  (If you
18       are changing root passwords and have equivalencing, the old password is
19       not used and may be omitted.)
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21       Passmass understands the "usual" conventions.  Additional arguments may
22       be  used  for tuning.  They affect all hosts which follow until another
23       argument overrides it.  For example, if you are  known  as  "libes"  on
24       host1 and host2, but "don" on host3, you would say:
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26            passmass host1 host2 -user don host3
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28       Arguments are:
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30              -user
31                  User  whose  password will be changed.  By default, the cur‐
32                  rent user is used.
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35              -rlogin
36                  Use rlogin to access host.  (default)
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38
39              -slogin
40                  Use slogin to access host.
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43              -ssh
44                  Use ssh to access host.
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46
47              -telnet
48                  Use telnet to access host.
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50
51              -program
52
53                  Next argument is a program  to  run  to  set  the  password.
54                  Default  is  "passwd".   Other common choices are "yppasswd"
55                  and "set passwd" (e.g., VMS hosts).  A program name such  as
56                  "password  fred"  can  be  used  to  create  entries for new
57                  accounts (when run as root).
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59
60              -prompt
61                  Next argument is a prompt suffix pattern.  This  allows  the
62                  script  to know when the shell is prompting.  The default is
63                  "# " for root and "% " for non-root accounts.
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66              -timeout
67                  Next  argument  is  the  number  of  seconds  to  wait   for
68                  responses.   Default  is  30  but  some  systems can be much
69                  slower logging in.
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72              -su
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74                  Next argument is  1  or  0.   If  1,  you  are  additionally
75                  prompted  for a root password which is used to su after log‐
76                  ging in.  root's password is changed rather than the user's.
77                  This is useful for hosts which do not allow root to log in.
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79

HOW TO USE

81       The  best way to run Passmass is to put the command in a one-line shell
82       script or alias.  Whenever you get a new account on a new machine,  add
83       the  appropriate  arguments  to  the command.  Then run it whenever you
84       want to change your passwords on all the hosts.
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86

CAVEATS

88       Using the same password on multiple hosts carries risks.   In  particu‐
89       lar,  if  the  password can be stolen, then all of your accounts are at
90       risk.  Thus, you should not use Passmass in situations where your pass‐
91       word  is  visible,  such as across a network which hackers are known to
92       eavesdrop.
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94       On the other hand, if you have enough  accounts  with  different  pass‐
95       words,  you  may end up writing them down somewhere - and that can be a
96       security problem.  Funny story: my  college  roommate  had  an  11"x13"
97       piece of paper on which he had listed accounts and passwords all across
98       the Internet.  This was several years worth of careful work and he car‐
99       ried it with him everywhere he went.  Well one day, he forgot to remove
100       it from his jeans, and we found a perfectly blank sheet of  paper  when
101       we took out the wash the following day!
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SEE ALSO

104       "Exploring  Expect: A Tcl-Based Toolkit for Automating Interactive Pro‐
105       grams" by Don Libes, O'Reilly and Associates, January 1995.
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AUTHOR

108       Don Libes, National Institute of Standards and Technology
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112                                7 October 1993                     PASSMASS(1)
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