How to automatically add user account AND password with a Bash script?

You can run the passwd command and send it piped input. So, do something like:

echo thePassword | passwd theUsername --stdin

I was asking myself the same thing, and didn't want to rely on a Python script.

This is the line to add a user with a defined password in one bash line:

useradd -p $(openssl passwd -crypt $PASS) $USER

I liked Tralemonkey's approach of echo thePassword | passwd theUsername --stdin though it didn't quite work for me as written. This however worked for me.

echo -e "$password\n$password\n" | sudo passwd $user

-e is to recognize \n as new line.

sudo is root access for Ubuntu.

The double quotes are to recognize $ and expand the variables.

The above command passes the password and a new line, two times, to passwd, which is what passwd requires.

If not using variables, I think this probably works.

echo -e 'password\npassword\n' | sudo passwd username

Single quotes should suffice here.

You can use the -p option.

useradd -p encrypted_password newuser

Unfortunately, this does require you to hash the password yourself (where passwd does that for you). Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a standard utility to hash some data so you'll have to write that yourself.

Here's a little Python script I whipped up to do the encryption for you. Assuming you called it pcrypt, you would then write your above command line to:

useradd -p $(pcrypt ${passwd}) newuser

A couple of warnings to be aware of.

1. While pcrypt is running, the plaintext will be visible to any user via the ps command.
2. pcrypt uses the old style crypt function - if you are using something more moderns like an MD5 hash, you'll need to change pcrypt.

and here's pcrypt:

#!/usr/bin/env python

import crypt
import sys
import random

saltchars = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789"

def salt():
    return random.choice(saltchars) + random.choice(saltchars)

def hash(plain):
    return crypt.crypt(arg, salt())

if __name__ == "__main__":
    random.seed()
    for arg in sys.argv[1:]:
        sys.stdout.write("%s\n" % (hash(arg),))

You can use expect in your bash script.

From http://www.seanodonnell.com/code/?id=21

#!/usr/bin/expect 
######################################### 
#$ file: htpasswd.sh 
#$ desc: Automated htpasswd shell script 
######################################### 
#$ 
#$ usage example: 
#$ 
#$ ./htpasswd.sh passwdpath username userpass 
#$ 
###################################### 

set htpasswdpath [lindex $argv 0] 
set username [lindex $argv 1] 
set userpass [lindex $argv 2] 

# spawn the htpasswd command process 
spawn htpasswd $htpasswdpath $username 

# Automate the 'New password' Procedure 
expect "New password:" 
send "$userpass\r" 

expect "Re-type new password:" 
send "$userpass\r"

Kindly run below script with sudo permission for creating a user by script.

Note: This script supports all linux OSs like Redhat, Centos, Ubuntu, suse, kali, Arch, Bitname, BSD....etc

#!/bin/bash
#author: bablish jaiswal
#purpos: Linux user creation with a storng password
clear
#echo "Hi, I am a function to create sudo user with strong password. Kindly share following information"
echo -e "\n\n\n"
printf "\e[6;33mHi, I am a function to create sudo user with a strong password. Kindly share following information\e[0m";echo
read -p "user name:- " name #input name
read -p "complete path for $name home directory? example: /home/$name :- " home #user home path
( useradd  -m -d $home $name -s /bin/bash ) > /dev/null 2>&1
pass=$(cat /dev/urandom |tr -dc "[[:graph:]]" |head -c16)
(echo -e "$pass\n$pass" | passwd $name ) > /dev/null 2>&1
echo " "
printf "\e[6;33m-----------------------------Copy below credentials-------------------------\e[0m";echo
echo -e "User:- $name\nHomeDir:- $home\npassword:- $pass"
#svalue=$(cat /etc/sudoers |grep -i root |grep -i all|tail -n1 |awk '{$1=""}1')
svalue=$(cat /etc/sudoers |grep -i root |grep -i all|tail -n1 |awk '{print $2}')
echo "${name} ${svalue} NOPASSWD:ALL" >> /etc/sudoers && echo “Remark:- User $name is a sudo user”