suse man page for chpasswd

chpasswd(8)						      System Manager's Manual						       chpasswd(8)

NAME
       chpasswd - change user passwords in batch

SYNOPSIS
       chpasswd [-D binddn] [-P path] [-c des|md5|blowfish | -e] [file]

DESCRIPTION
       chpasswd  changes  passwords for user accounts in batch. It reads a list of login and password pairs from standard input or a file and uses
       this information to update the passwords of this user accounts. The named account must exist and the password age  will	be  updated.  Each
       input line is of the format:

		 user_name:password

       If  the	hash algorithmus is not given on the commandline, the value of GROUP_CRYPT or, if not specified, CRYPT from /etc/default/passwd is
       used as hash algorithmus.  If not configured, the traditinal des algorithmus is used.

OPTIONS
       -c des|md5|blowfish
	      This option specifies the hash algorithmus, which should be used to encrypt the passwords.

       -e     The passwords are expected to be in encrypted form. Normally the passwords are expected to be cleartext.

       -D, --binddn binddn
	      Use the Distinguished Name binddn to bind to the LDAP directory.	The user will be prompted for a password  for  simple  authentica-
	      tion.

       -P, --path path
	      The  passwd  and	shadow	files  are  located  below the specified directory path. chpasswd will use this files, not /etc/passwd and
	      /etc/shadow.

FILES
       /etc/default/passwd - default values for password hash

SEE ALSO
       passwd(1), passwd(5), shadow(5)

AUTHOR
       Thorsten Kukuk <kukuk@suse.de>

pwdutils							   Feburary 2004						       chpasswd(8)