You might want to see if your system has a chpass or pw command. chpass lets you change an account's password by specifying an encrypted password on the command line, which would alleviate your need for passwd completely.

However, because the encrypted password is specified on the command line, be aware that it may show up on your system's process list. It may not be a good idea to do this on a system with untrusted users, if those users are allowed to get info about processes they don't own. In this case, your method would be better, but unfortunately I don't have enough experience with the Expect module to help you very much :)

Alan

my $exp;

foreach (@hosts) {
        $exp = Expect->spawn("ssh -l $username $_")
                or die "Cannot spawn ssh: $!\n";

        do_exp ($timeout, 'password $', $oldpass);
        do_exp ($timeout, "$username\]", 'passwd');
        do_exp ($timeout, 'password:', $oldpass);
        do_exp ($timeout, 'password:', $newpass);
        do_exp ($timeout, 'password:', $newpass);
}

sub do_exp {
        my ($_timeout, $_lookfor, $_send) = @_;
        if ($exp->expect($_timeout, $_lookfor)) {
                $exp->send($_send);
        } else {
                die "Timeout waiting for $_lookfor.\n";
        }
}
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if ($exp->expect($_timeout, $_lookfor)) {
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if ($exp->expect($_timeout,'-re',$_lookfor)) {
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I modified per your recommendation:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use Expect;

my $timeout = '5';
my $username = 'luser';
my $newpass = 'luser';
my $oldpass = 'n3wp@ss!';

open(HOSTS,"hosts.txt")
            or die "Error while opening file:$!\n";
            chomp( my @hosts = <HOSTS> );
close(HOSTS)
            or die "Error while closing file:$!\n";
my $exp;
foreach (@hosts) { 
    $exp = Expect->spawn("ssh -l $username $_")
    or die "Cannot spawn ssh: $!\n";;
my $spawn_ok;
#$exp->exp_internal(1);
                  do_exp ($timeout, 'password', $oldpass);
                  do_exp ($timeout, "$username\n", "passwd");
                  do_exp ($timeout, 'password:', $oldpass);
                  do_exp ($timeout, 'password:', $newpass);
                  do_exp ($timeout, 'password:', $newpass);
          }

          sub do_exp {
                  my ($_timeout, $_lookfor, $_send) = @_;
                  if ($exp->expect($_timeout,'-re',$_lookfor)) {
                          $exp->send($_send);
                  } else {
                          die "Timeout waiting for $_lookfor.\n";
                  }
          }
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but am still having problems.
I show the output with verbose debugging turned on below:


Starting EXPECT pattern matching...
    Expect::expect('Expect=GLOB(0x835f7e0)', 5, '-re', 'password') cal
+led at ./example.pl line 30
    main::do_exp(5, 'password', 'n3wp@ss!') called at ./example.pl lin
+e 21
spawn id(3): list of patterns:
  #1: -re `password'


spawn id(3): Does `'
match:
  pattern #1: -re `password'? No.

luser@10.10.10.39's password: 
spawn id(3): Does `luser@10.10.10.39\'s password: '
match:
  pattern #1: -re `password'? YES!!
    Before match string: `luser@10.10.10.39\'s '
    Match string: `password'
    After match string: `: '
    Matchlist: ()
Sending 'n3wp@ss!' to spawn id(3)
    Expect::print('Expect=GLOB(0x835f7e0)', 'n3wp@ss!') called at ./ex
+ample.pl line 30
    main::do_exp(5, 'password', 'n3wp@ss!') called at ./example.pl lin
+e 21
Starting EXPECT pattern matching...
    Expect::expect('Expect=GLOB(0x835f7e0)', 5, '-re', 'luser^J') call
+ed at ./example.pl line 30
    main::do_exp(5, 'luser^J', 'passwd') called at ./example.pl line 2
+2
spawn id(3): list of patterns:
  #1: -re `luser\n'


spawn id(3): Does `: '
match:
  pattern #1: -re `luser\n'? No.

n3wp@ss!
spawn id(3): Does `: n3wp@ss!'
match:
  pattern #1: -re `luser\n'? No.

Timeout waiting for luser
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Without verbose debugging:


luser@10.10.10.39's password: n3wp@ss!Timeout waiting for luser
.
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Thanks again for the assist!

Sorry, overlooked:

$exp->send("$_send\n");
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If it's not sent explicitly, Expect doesn't add a return onto the end of the string you're sending. Also, are you sure you want to be matching $username\n? I'm guessing the \n is a typo, somehow...

I took out the pattern-match statement looking for the ssh password (I'm using keys) and tried the script, and it works for me. Let me know if you're still having trouble...

scott.