Hi; im a newbie for linux. i have a home work which i wrote as bellow. anybody can help me to correct what is wrong. im appreciated. the question is: write a script to check users' id and ensure they have: 1. specific min days to change password (7) 2. specific max days to change password (30) 3. specific warning days (5) 4. ensure the "last changed" setting for each user occured in the past and report any that do not match this (include the date set in the shadow file in the report) if -o option is passed as a command line, interactively prompt the user do: 1. disabling accounts 2. force change a users password 3. force a user to change password at next login. #!/bin/sh if [ $# -ne 1 ]; then cat /etc/passwd | while read line do if [ echo `awk -F: '{print $3}' $line` > 500 ]; then username = echo `awk -F: '{print $1}' $line` temp = echo `passwd -S $username` if [ echo `awk -F: '{print $3}' temp` ne 7 ]; then passwd -n7 $username fi if [ echo `awk -F: '{print $4}' temp` ne 30 ]; then passwd -x30 $username fi if [ echo `awk -F: '{print $5}' temp` ne 5 ]; then passwd -w5 $username fi if [ grep -v '\/[0-9][0-9]\/[0-9][0-9]\/2003' `echo `awk $2 temp`` ]; then echo $line fi fi done else cat /etc/passwd | while read line do if [ echo `awk -F: '{print $3}' $line` >= 500 ]; then username = echo `awk -F: '{print $1}' $line` temp = `passwd -S $username` if [ echo `awk -F: '{print $3}' temp` ne 7 ]; then passwd -n7 $username fi if [ echo `awk -F: '{print $4}' temp` ne 30 ]; then passwd -x30 $username fi if [ echo `awk -F: '{print $5}' temp` ne 5 ]; then passwd -w5 $username fi if [ grep -v '^\/[0-9][0-9]\/[0-9][0-9]\/2003' `echo `awk $2 temp`` ]; then echo $line fi if [ $1 = -o ]; then echo 'Enter the command as bellow:' echo 'l -- for disable the password' echo 'p -- force change a users password' echo 'f -- force change his/her passwd at next login' if [ $1 = l ]; then passwd -l $username fi if [ $1 = p ]; then passwd -x1 -n1 $username fi if [ $1 = f ] passwd -f $username fi fi fi done fi exit 0

First some notes. You cannot have spaces around the '=' in a variable assignment. For numerical comparisons, you should use the -gt syntax as in if [ $var -gt 500 ] ; then Your interactive section needed a 'read' and a way to process the user input. I hope the following is a start. You probably want to modify it to actually do something when the values from /etc/shadow are outside of specs. #!/bin/sh if [ $# -eq 2 ]; then username=$2 elif [ $# -eq 1 ] ; then username=$1 else echo "Usage $0 [-o] username" exit 4 fi ID=`id | cut -f 2 -d '=' | sed -e 's/(.*//'` if [ $ID -ne 0 ] ; then echo "This script needs to be run as root" exit 4 fi usercheck () { if [ `grep -c "^$username:" /etc/passwd` -eq 0 ] ; then echo "Invalid username $username" exit 4 fi } if [ "$1" = "-o" ] ; then username=$2 usercheck echo 'Enter the command as bellow:' echo 'l -- for disable the password' echo 'p -- force change a users password' echo 'f -- force change his/her passwd at next login' echo 'q -- exit interactive password management' while [ "$ans" != "q" ] ; do read ans ans=`echo $ans | cut -c 1 | tr '[A-Z]' '[a-z]'` if [ "$ans" = "l" ] ; then passwd -l $username elif [ "$ans" = "p" ] ; then passwd -x1 -n1 $username elif [ "$ans" = "f" ] ; then passwd -f $username elif [ "$ans" = "q" ] ; then echo "Exiting now" else echo "Invalid input. Please try again" fi done else username=$1 usercheck shadow_line=`grep "^$username:" /etc/shadow` echo "###$shadow_line###" passwd=`echo $shadow_line | awk '{ print $2 }'` lastchg=`echo $shadow_line | awk '{ print $3 }'` min=`echo $shadow_line | awk '{ print $4 }'` max=`echo $shadow_line | awk '{ print $5 }'` warn=`echo $shadow_line | awk '{ print $6 }'` inactive=`echo $shadow_line | awk '{ print $7 }'` expire=`echo $shadow_line | awk '{ print $8 }'` flag=`echo $shadow_line | awk '{ print $9 }'` echo "Userid $passwd $lastchg $min $max $warn $inactive $expire $flag" if [ -z "$min" ] ; then echo "WARNING 'min' unset for $username" elif [ $min -ne 7 ] ; then echo "WARNING minimum days between password changes is not equal to 7" fi if [ -z "$max" ] ; then echo "WARNING 'max' unset for $username" elif [ $max -ne 30 ] ; then echo "WARNING valid password duration is not equal to 30" fi if [ -z "$warn" ] ; then echo "WARNING 'warn' unset for $username" elif [ $warn -ne 5 ] ; then echo "WARNING warning days is not equal to 5" fi echo "Last changed date '$lastchg'" fi

I made an error by ommitting the IFS declaration. Please include the line IFS=":" ; export IFS right after the shadow_line=`... line