Linux Manual Pages

Free Software * Books

Source Code

Free Media

Linux

PASSMASS

NAME
SYNOPSIS
INTRODUCTION
HOW TO USE
CAVEATS
SEE ALSO
AUTHOR

NAME

passmass − change password on multiple machines

SYNOPSIS

passmass [ host1 host2 host3 ... ]

INTRODUCTION

Passmass changes a password on multiple machines. If you have accounts on several machines that do not share password databases, Passmass can help you keep them all in sync. This, in turn, will make it easier to change them more frequently.

When Passmass runs, it asks you for the old and new passwords. (If you are changing root passwords and have equivalencing, the old password is not used and may be omitted.)

Passmass understands the "usual" conventions. Additional arguments may be used for tuning. They affect all hosts which follow until another argument overrides it. For example, if you are known as "libes" on host1 and host2, but "don" on host3, you would say:

passmass host1 host2 -user don host3

Arguments are:

-user

User whose password will be changed. By default, the current user is used.

-rlogin

Use rlogin to access host. (default)

-slogin

Use slogin to access host.

-ssh

Use ssh to access host.

-telnet

Use telnet to access host.

-program

Next argument is a program to run to set the password. Default is "passwd". Other common choices are "yppasswd" and "set passwd" (e.g., VMS hosts). A program name such as "password fred" can be used to create entries for new accounts (when run as root).

-prompt

Next argument is a prompt suffix pattern. This allows the script to know when the shell is prompting. The default is "# " for root and "% " for non-root accounts.

-timeout

Next argument is the number of seconds to wait for responses. Default is 30 but some systems can be much slower logging in.

-su

Next argument is 1 or 0. If 1, you are additionally prompted for a root password which is used to su after logging in. root’s password is changed rather than the user’s. This is useful for hosts which do not allow root to log in.

HOW TO USE

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

CAVEATS

Using the same password on multiple hosts carries risks. In particular, if the password can be stolen, then all of your accounts are at risk. Thus, you should not use Passmass in situations where your password is visible, such as across a network which hackers are known to eavesdrop.

On the other hand, if you have enough accounts with different passwords, you may end up writing them down somewhere - and that can be a security problem. Funny story: my college roommate had an 11"x13" piece of paper on which he had listed accounts and passwords all across the Internet. This was several years worth of careful work and he carried it with him everywhere he went. Well one day, he forgot to remove it from his jeans, and we found a perfectly blank sheet of paper when we took out the wash the following day!

AUTHOR

Don Libes, National Institute of Standards and Technology

Opportunity

Personal Opportunity - Free software gives you access to billions of dollars of software at no cost. Use this software for your business, personal use or to develop a profitable skill. Access to source code provides access to a level of capabilities/information that companies protect though copyrights. Open source is a core component of the Internet and it is available to you. Leverage the billions of dollars in resources and capabilities to build a career, establish a business or change the world. The potential is endless for those who understand the opportunity.

Business Opportunity - Goldman Sachs, IBM and countless large corporations are leveraging open source to reduce costs, develop products and increase their bottom lines. Learn what these companies know about open source and how open source can give you the advantage.

Free Software

Free Software provides computer programs and capabilities at no cost but more importantly, it provides the freedom to run, edit, contribute to, and share the software. The importance of free software is a matter of access, not price. Software at no cost is a benefit but ownership rights to the software and source code is far more significant.

Free Office Software - The Libre Office suite provides top desktop productivity tools for free. This includes, a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation engine, drawing and flowcharting, database and math applications. Libre Office is available for Linux or Windows.

Free Books

The Free Books Library is a collection of thousands of the most popular public domain books in an online readable format. The collection includes great classical literature and more recent works where the U.S. copyright has expired. These books are yours to read and use without restrictions.

Source Code - Want to change a program or know how it works? Open Source provides the source code for its programs so that anyone can use, modify or learn how to write those programs themselves. Visit the GNU source code repositories to download the source.

Education

Study at Harvard, Stanford or MIT - Open edX provides free online courses from Harvard, MIT, Columbia, UC Berkeley and other top Universities. Hundreds of courses for almost all major subjects and course levels. Open edx also offers some paid courses and selected certifications.

Linux Manual Pages - A man or manual page is a form of software documentation found on Linux/Unix operating systems. Topics covered include computer programs (including library and system calls), formal standards and conventions, and even abstract concepts.