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Is it possible / any recommendations on writing a shell script to automate the process of creating a new user/ftp user:

Currently the process:

sudo useradd -d /ftp-files/user-a -m user-a
sudo passwd user-a

The issue is that I need to manually enter the passwords when prompted:

Enter new UNIX password: [enter pwd]
Retype new UNIX password: [enter pwd-same]
passwd: password updated successfully

With lots of accounts to generate this gets very time consuming.. If I could do it all via a script, that would be great.. But is it possible to input passwords on the fly via a bash script?

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2 Answers 2

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You can use something along the lines of:

sudo useradd -d /ftp-files/$1 -m $1
echo $2 | sudo passwd --stdin $1

And then invoke the script like this:

./createuser <username> <password>

For more information about the --stdin flag, you can check man 1 passwd.

EDIT : Unfortunately, it turns out that the passwd command in Ubuntu does not support the --stdin flag (at least according to this man page), so you will have to go with the chpasswd option:

sudo useradd -d /ftp-files/$1 -m $1
echo "$1:$2" | sudo chpasswd
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  • Thanks for the reply - looks what I need. However, for some reason it keeps throwing.. chpasswd: unrecognized option '--stdin' for chpasswd and passwd..? Strange
    – williamsowen
    Jun 28, 2012 at 15:04
  • It looks like Ubuntu's passwd command doesn't support --stdin, I added a workaround using chpasswd, please check the edited section above.
    – Vladimir Blaskov
    Jun 28, 2012 at 15:32
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I would say you probably want to use chpasswd rather than passwd. The manpage gives you all the necessary details. There's also an entertaining read on why this is a bad idea.

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