Cronjob for root password change. Post: 302903795

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Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting Cronjob for root password change. Post 302903795 by Aia on Thursday 29th of May 2014 03:59:58 PM

05-29-2014

Registered User

Quote:

Originally Posted by nixhead

[...]But my concern is that user while having root access can read the real root password from cron, so is there is a possibility where I can avoid the hard-coding of root password, while still achieving the objective.

Quite often we do not have a saying on the practices and polices of the systems we administrate. Most of the time, the circumstances are far from ideal.

Allow me to subject that you encrypt the password before hand. Even if they get the hash it cannot be reversed to find out what the password is.

chpasswd already allows you to accept the hash instead of the clear text

Use some utility to encrypt the password into a hash that match what you see in the /etc/shadow file.

I use perl

Code:

perl -e 'print crypt("Some_password_I_want","\$6\$random_string\$") . "\n"'

Change "Some_password_I_want" for the real password
Change "random_string" for truly some make-up string of characters, I think if I remember correctly there's a limit as how long.

That will produce an output like:

Quote:

$6$random_string$7XSl45SffAJzLhBeEC7sa8Xn0x6w/yWnYET1P7gDFW1ffivIpYzZ3jbISbTeBE1dJFIBKbW15PGUhRLXmDYQS

blue is the type of hash
red is the salt
green is the encrypted password

Then use it as:

Code:

echo 'root:$6$random_string$7XSl45SffAJzLhBeEC7sa8Xn0x6w/yWnYET1P7gDFW1ffivIpYzZ3jbISbTeBE1dJFIBKbW15PGUhRLXmDYQS.' | chpasswd -e

It is important to use single quotes so the shell doesn't try to interpret all those $ as variables

Now, the password is not shown in the clear

Aia

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LEARN ABOUT CENTOS

mkpasswd

MKPASSWD(1)						      General Commands Manual						       MKPASSWD(1)

NAME

       mkpasswd - generate new password, optionally apply it to a user

SYNOPSIS

       mkpasswd [ args ] [ user ]

INTRODUCTION

       mkpasswd generates passwords and can apply them automatically to users.	mkpasswd is based on the code from Chapter 23 of the O'Reilly book
       "Exploring Expect".

USAGE

       With no arguments, mkpasswd returns a new password.

	    mkpasswd

       With a user name, mkpasswd assigns a new password to the user.

	    mkpasswd don

       The passwords are randomly generated according to the flags below.

FLAGS

       The -l flag defines the length of the password.	The default is 9.  The following example creates a 20 character password.

	    mkpasswd -l 20

       The -d flag defines the minimum number of digits that must be in the password.  The default is 2.  The following example creates a password
       with at least 3 digits.

	    mkpasswd -d 3

       The -c flag defines the minimum number of lowercase alphabetic characters that must be in the password.	The default is 2.

       The -C flag defines the minimum number of uppercase alphabetic characters that must be in the password.	The default is 2.

       The -s flag defines the minimum number of special characters that must be in the password.  The default is 1.

       The -p flag names a program to set the password.  By default, /etc/yppasswd is used if present, otherwise /bin/passwd is used.

       The  -2 flag causes characters to be chosen so that they alternate between right and left hands (qwerty-style), making it harder for anyone
       watching passwords being entered.  This can also make it easier for a password-guessing program.

       The -v flag causes the password-setting interaction to be visible.  By default, it is suppressed.

EXAMPLE

       The following example creates a 15-character password that contains at least 3 digits and 5 uppercase characters.

	    mkpasswd -l 15 -d 3 -C 5

SEE ALSO

       "Exploring Expect: A Tcl-Based Toolkit for Automating Interactive Programs" by Don Libes, O'Reilly and Associates, January 1995.

AUTHOR

       Don Libes, National Institute of Standards and Technology

       mkpasswd is in the public domain.  NIST and I would appreciate credit if this program or parts of it are used.

								  22 August 1994						       MKPASSWD(1)