Re: API for changing UNIX password from Windows

Chao Y. Din wrote: > We had this discussion not too long ago. That is probably why no one > answered the original posting. I believe most of us suggest using > "Expect." You can call it from a stored procecure through "system" > command. > > You can find everything about "Expect" through "yahoo". > > Chao BZZZT! Not to beat a dead Horse, but hit dejanews and look at previous articles. I don't think that a concensus was reached. You don't want to use expect. Of course, you can use it, but being a paranoid developer, *I* wouldn't recommend it. First using Expect, you need the following: 1) TK/TCL (Really TCL) 2) Expect These packages are shareware. Some companies have policies explicitly state that the use of sharware is verboten. (Forbidden) [This is a GOOD idea!] The main issue is security. Using expect means that your password that you type in on your client, is visible to the entire system and can be captured. By doing it in C, you can have two levels of encryption. First you can encrypt it from the PC to the UNIX App so that any packet snoopers wouldn't see it cleanly. Then you can encrypt it a second time from Informix to UNIX. The other issue is logging this action or also allowing for a secondary application passwd to exist. So that you can have multiple users with the same UNIX account accessing the system. Again, I DONT want to bring up this thread again, so contact me offline. (mikey@segel.com) -Mikey