Neil, That's a bad idea because it defeats the purpose of the password being there to start with. You see, the password is ordinarily encrypted and kept under tight safeguards, to make it hard to figure out what it is. If you were to reset the password periodically, you would presumably have to store the password without it being encrypted, which personally gives me the willies because of its security implications, like someone being able to read your password...
However, it _is_ possible to copy the password, in its encrypted form, from a cron script, and copy it into its proper place in /etc/shadow. The problem with this is that it would need a parser of one sort or another -- probably a perl script. Ask someone else for this, but I still think it's a bad idea security wise. Regards, Alex. -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.12 GCM d- s:+ a--- C++++ UL++++ P L+++ E W++ N o-- K- w O--- M- V- PS+ PE- Y PGP t+ 5 X- R tv+ b DI--- D+ G e-- h++ r--- y ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------ On Wed, 22 Mar 2000, Neil D. Roberts wrote: > Hi, > > First time on this list :) Anyway, I have a little brain cracker > here, or at least for me it is. Does anybody happen to know how to have > an automatic process which sets "roots" password every 1 hour ? What I > mean basically is so that when the root password gets changed > accidentally, this process sets it back to what it was. I figured out > that the only way is to make a process or a file to execute in the > cron.daily . But then again, I don´t know how to do that either . . . > Thanks for the help > > Much Respect > > -- > ------------------------------------------------------------- > Neil D. Roberts ; Administrador De Sistemas; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Lander World Communications Server S.L. / Integra España S.A. > Calle Rufino Gonzalez, Nº15 - 4ª Planta, Madrid, España 28037 > Telefonos : 917.897.710 ; 902.363.363 Fax : 913.042.044 > Mensatel Beeper: Nº 940.331.331 ; Codigo Del Cliente : #NR10 > PGP Print: 6228 6EEE C604 431A 70A9 84B7 E327 9CAF E59A 2709 > ------------------------------------------------------------- > > at least I thought I was dancing, 'til somebody stepped on my hand. > > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] >