is there a way to script in Python to change user passwords in Linux? if so, how?

Question

I'm trying to write some scripts in Python and stumbled upon the need of making something to update the password of a given user in a Linux system...

UPDATE: the objective is to achieve the script to update the password automatically from a given data/algorithm. The important thing is to have no human intervention...

is there a way to achieve that? or should I search through other means?

Thanks!

Answer 1

You can use openssl and usermod:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import subprocess

login = 'username'
password = 'somepassword'

# OpenSSL doesn't support stronger hash functions, mkpasswd is preferred
#p = subprocess.Popen(('openssl', 'passwd', '-1', password), stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
p = subprocess.Popen(('mkpasswd', '-m', 'sha-512', password), stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
shadow_password = p.communicate()[0].strip()

if p.returncode != 0:
    print 'Error creating hash for ' + login

r = subprocess.call(('usermod', '-p', shadow_password, login))

if r != 0:
    print 'Error changing password for ' + login