2

I'm trying to set my password with echo "user:SOME_PASSWORD_STRING" | sudo chpasswd -e but when I do this, my password is not set to the correct password. The passwords I'm using are one's I've copied from /etc/shadow.

Zags
  • 151
  • 1
  • 7
  • Wait… you have password hashes stored in /etc/passwd? Aren't we supposed to store those in /etc/shadow which is inaccessible to regular users for security reasons? I really hope you're not operating any publicly accessible servers. – David Foerster Oct 16 '14 at 01:53
  • @DavidFoerster Oops. I meant /etc/shadow. Fixed – Zags Oct 16 '14 at 17:41

1 Answers1

2

The problem is the use of double quotes in the echo statement. The password had several $ characters in it, which was translated as bash variables.

The correct command uses single quotes:

echo 'user:SOME_PASSWORD_STRING' | sudo chpasswd -e

See here for more on quotes: Differences between doublequotes " ", singlequotes ' ' and backticks ´ ´ on commandline?

Community
  • 1
Zags
  • 151
  • 1
  • 7