CHPASSWD

Section: Maintenance Commands (8)
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NAME

chpasswd - update password file in batch

SYNOPSIS

chpasswd

DESCRIPTION

chpasswd reads a file of user name and cleartext password pairs from standard input and uses this information to update a group of existing users. Each line is of the format user_name:password
The named user must exist. The supplied password will be encrypted and the password age updated, if present.

This command is intended to be used in a large system environment where many accounts are created at a single time.

CAVEATS

The mkpasswd command must be executed afterwards to update the DBM password files. The input file must be protected since it contains unencrypted passwords. This command may be discarded in favor of the newusers(8) command.