SYNOPSIS
courierpasswd [-chvV] [-s SERVICE] [-C CRAMTYPE] [--stdin] [--stderr] [prog...]
courierpasswd -s, --service SERVICE
courierpasswd -c, --changepwd
courierpasswd -C, --cramtype CRAMTYPE
courierpasswd -h, --help
courierpasswd -V, --version
Additional options (see below):
-
[-v, --verbose] [--stdin] [--stderr]
DESCRIPTION
courierpasswd uses courier authentication modules to authenticate users and to change their passwords. Using the --changepwd option will change a user's password, otherwise the user will be authenticated. The password changing functionality is not available for users authenticated with CRAM.courierpasswd uses the checkpassword protocol for obtaining authentication tokens from either file descriptor 3 or from stdin (see below). checkpassword style programs are usually run by network server programs that wish to authenticate remote users.
The service to use with courierpasswd will depend on the specific authentication modules installed. Often 'login' will be appropriate but other possibilities include 'imap' and 'pop3'. This value defaults to 'login'. See the Courier documentation for a further explanation of this option.
When authenticating users with CRAM, courierpasswd's --cramtype option can be used to specify the CRAM type. Valid choices for --cramtype are 'md5' and 'sha1'. If not specified, CRAM type defaults to md5. Passwords cannot be changed when the --cramtype option is used with courierpasswd. If both the --changepwd and --cramtype options are present, the --cramtype option will be ignored.
LOGGING
courierpasswd logs attempts to authenticate users and change passwords, successful or not, to syslog or to stderr if the --stderr option is used.
courierpasswd does certain checks on command line arguments so it is important to put --stderr first in the argument list if it is to be used in order for these checks to be logged properly.
DEBUGGING
You can turn on verbose output using the -v or --verbose option. courierpasswd starts to log all of its actions and the results of those actions to stderr.
There is a way to manually trace how the courierpasswd changes passwords: use the --stdin and --stderr options. With these options courierpasswd reads authentication tokens from stdin, and logs actions to stderr. You can trace the activity of courierpasswd when authenticating a user with the following command:
$ echo -e "username\0oldpassword\0" \
| courierpasswd --stderr --stdin --verbose
or when using CRAM:
$ echo -e "username\0challenge\0response\0" \
| courierpasswd --stderr --stdin --verbose --cramtype sha1
or when changing a password with this command:
$ echo -e "username\0oldpassword\0newpassword\0" \
| courierpasswd --stderr --stdin --verbose --changepwd
These commands fail if either password begins with a number. In such a case, the echo command can be replaced with either of the following statements when authenticating a user. Which one is chosen will depend on the scripting language available.
$ python -c 'print "%s\0%s\0" % \
("username","oldpassword")'
or
$ perl -e 'printf "%s\0%s\0","username","oldpassword"'
When changing a password, use one of these two commands:
$ python -c 'print "%s\0%s\0%s\0" % \
("username","oldpassword","newpassword")'
or
$ perl -e 'printf "%s\0%s\0%s\0","username", \
"oldpassword","newpassword"'
AUTHOR
courierpasswd was written by Andrew St. Jean
checkpassword interface was designed by Daniel J. Bernstein.
Courier authentication library was written by Sam Varshavchik