mchp.pl - Meta-Change Password system

These work fine under Solaris 2.6 and SunOS 4.1.x using Perl 5.004_04; no other configurations have been tried, nor will they be. Our nis (formerly yp) setup is pretty integral to some of the workings, but it shouldn't be too much of a job to pull that out or change it as necessary. I'm really just posting this for others' convenience, so no further development is contemplated. Please do let me know if you find them useful. I can be reached at aperrin@demog.berkeley.edu.

A tiny bit of documentation:

• /etc/schpd.allow and /etc/schpd.deny work as you might expect them to, containing the ip addresses or ranges that should be allowed or denied to connect to the server. Make this as restrictive as is useful to you. The only ranging it does is *; i.e., 1.1.1.* will allow any IP address whose first three octets are 1's. If neither file exists, any host may connect. Localhost (127.0.0.1) may always connect.


• Hosts that are disallowed are disconnected before they're able to send anything on the socket, to avoid the potential for overflow-style problems.


• Both the programs have a little built-in documentation if you start them with the -h option; they just spit out a "usage" line. Also, if you use the -d option you get debugging information as the system runs -- this can be a little disorienting but useful.


• This system tries to update a passwd file and an smbpasswd file based on information it gets from the client -- it's very trusting. Beware!


• The following are required:
  • Perl
  • Expect
  • A /bin/passwd program that behaves exactly like Solaris's.

The files themselves: