random generated password

[Roland Smith]

On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 07:16:00PM +0100, Michael wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> When adding a new user it is possible to assign a random generated 
> password. But is it possible to assign a random password for already 
> existing users?
> 
> Preferably in a non-interactive and scriptable way. Is it possible with 
> the base system tools?

Generating a random password can be done with the openssl in the base system;

    openssl rand -base64 9

You'd want to pipe the output of this command through tee(1) and save it in a
file. Next you pipe it to a file discriptor leading to a 'pw usermod -h
0'. Something like this:

   openssl rand -base64 9 | tee -a newpasswords | pw usermod UID -h 0

where UID is the user-id or name of the user in question.


Roland
-- 
R.F.Smith                                   http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/
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