Initial commit of OpenSPARC T2 architecture model.
[OpenSPARC-T2-SAM] / sam-t2 / devtools / amd64 / man / man1 / passmass.1
CommitLineData
920dae64
AT
1.TH PASSMASS 1 "7 October 1993"
2.SH NAME
3passmass \- change password on multiple machines
4.SH SYNOPSIS
5.B passmass
6[
7.I host1 host2 host3 ...
8]
9.SH INTRODUCTION
10.B Passmass
11changes a password on multiple machines. If you have accounts on
12several machines that do not share password databases, Passmass can
13help you keep them all in sync. This, in turn, will make it easier to
14change them more frequently.
15
16When Passmass runs, it asks you for the old and new passwords.
17(If you are changing root passwords and have equivalencing, the old
18password is not used and may be omitted.)
19
20Passmass understands the "usual" conventions. Additional arguments
21may be used for tuning. They affect all hosts which follow until
22another argument overrides it. For example, if you are known as
23"libes" on host1 and host2, but "don" on host3, you would say:
24
25 passmass host1 host2 -user don host3
26
27Arguments are:
28.RS
29.TP 4
30-user
31User whose password will be changed. By default, the current user is used.
32
33.TP 4
34-rlogin
35Use rlogin to access host. (default)
36
37.TP 4
38-slogin
39Use slogin to access host.
40
41.TP 4
42-ssh
43Use slogin to access host.
44
45.TP 4
46-telnet
47Use telnet to access host.
48
49.TP 4
50-program
51
52Next argument is a program to run to set the password. Default is
53"passwd". Other common choices are "yppasswd" and "set passwd" (e.g.,
54VMS hosts). A program name such as "password fred" can be used to
55create entries for new accounts (when run as root).
56
57.TP 4
58-prompt
59Next argument is a prompt suffix pattern. This allows
60the script to know when the shell is prompting. The default is
61"# " for root and "% " for non-root accounts.
62
63.TP 4
64-timeout
65Next argument is the number of seconds to wait for responses.
66Default is 30 but some systems can be much slower logging in.
67
68.TP 4
69-su
70
71Next argument is 1 or 0. If 1, you are additionally prompted for a
72root password which is used to su after logging in. root's password
73is changed rather than the user's. This is useful for hosts which
74do not allow root to log in.
75
76.SH HOW TO USE
77The best way to run Passmass is to put the command in a one-line shell
78script or alias. Whenever you get a new account on a new machine, add
79the appropriate arguments to the command. Then run it whenever you
80want to change your passwords on all the hosts.
81
82.SH CAVEATS
83
84Using the same password on multiple hosts carries risks. In
85particular, if the password can be stolen, then all of your accounts
86are at risk. Thus, you should not use Passmass in situations where
87your password is visible, such as across a network which hackers are
88known to eavesdrop.
89
90On the other hand, if you have enough accounts with different
91passwords, you may end up writing them down somewhere - and
92.I that
93can be a security problem. Funny story: my college roommate had an
9411"x13" piece of paper on which he had listed accounts and passwords
95all across the Internet. This was several years worth of careful work
96and he carried it with him everywhere he went.
97Well one day, he forgot to remove it from his jeans, and we found a
98perfectly blank sheet of paper when we took out the wash the following
99day!
100.SH SEE ALSO
101.I
102"Exploring Expect: A Tcl-Based Toolkit for Automating Interactive Programs"
103\fRby Don Libes,
104O'Reilly and Associates, January 1995.
105.SH AUTHOR
106Don Libes, National Institute of Standards and Technology