first of all check if your system is using crypt() or MD5 passwords (RedHat 6..7 uses MD5) if your system uses MD5 passwords then you have to encrypt them with something like that: 

use Crypt::PasswdMD5;

sub my_md5_crypt {
my $salt;

for(0..7) {
    $salt .= ('.', '/', 0..9, 'A'..'Z','a'..'z')[rand 64];
}
my $pass = shift; #clear text password

return unix_md5_crypt($pass, '$1$' . $salt . '$');
}

[download]
in any case you should build a file in this format:
USERNAME:ENCRYPTEDPASSWORD
USERNAME2:ENCRYPTEDPASSWORD2
...

[download]
and then 

cat THATFILE | /usr/sbin/chpasswd -e

[download]
Note: if you have normal crypt passwords just build a file like that: 
USERNAME1:CLEARTEXTPASS_1
...

[download]
and then "/usr/sbin/chpasswd < THATFILE"

In reply to Re: shadow passwd by cianoz
in thread shadow passwd by SteveM

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.