Script for unlocking multiple users

Sharlene · 09-01-2010, 07:06 AM

Good Afternoon,

I’d like to create a script to unlock multiple users rather than entering the command manually for each user.

I’m quite new to Linux and have not done any scripting so far. Could you tell me if it’s possible to achieve what I want, and possibly provide examples or point me in the right direction?

We are using RHEL 5.

Any help is much appreciated.

Kind Regards
Sharlene

druuna · 09-01-2010, 07:13 AM

Hi,

Assuming you are using usermod -l username:

for thisuser in user1 user2 user3; do usermod -l $thisuser; done

Or, if the users are in a file (one user per line):

for thisuser in `cat file.with.users`; do usermod -l $thisuser; done

The above 2 examples are one-liners and can be entered from the command line. If an actual script is needed (taking second example as base):

Code:

#!/bin/bash

for thisuser in `cat file.with.users`
do 
  usermod -l $thisuser
done

Hope this helps.

Chirel · 09-01-2010, 07:14 AM

let's say you have a list of users to unlock in users.txt, you could for example :

Code:

for i in $(cat users.txt); do password -u $i; done

Edit: druuna was faster

Sharlene · 09-01-2010, 07:31 AM

Hi,

Thanks for getting back to me.

I probably should have mentioned. I only have access to a few commands, so usermod does not work for me.

When unlocking accounts the only command I can run is:

sudo /usr/bin/passwd -l 'username'

druuna · 09-01-2010, 07:47 AM

Hi,

Quote:

When unlocking accounts the only command I can run is:

sudo /usr/bin/passwd -l 'username'

You can still use the examples given. Change usermod -l with sudo /usr/bin/passwd -l

Hope this helps.