resetting a password entry with setpwent?

c has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Can setpwent be used on its own to set the value of a unix user's password? I read through the setpwent PM page, as well as my local linux man page, but the examples are only for the getpw* clan. Am I misinterpreting this function's use?

It seems as though I am as my man page states that setpwent soley positions the file pointer to the beginning of /etc/passwd. In a shadowed environment, am I going down the wrong path?

humbly -c

Comment on resetting a password entry with setpwent?

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Re: resetting a password entry with setpwent? by tbo (Scribe) on Apr 11, 2002 at 23:55 UTC
The function setpwent only reads /etc/passwd from the end to the begin (or /etc/shadow if the script is run by root). If you want to set the passwords (in a shadowed environment), you should use Passwd::Linux if the unix is linux.	[reply]