Bash Shell Scripting
Click to view a screenshot of my newpass script in action (Bash)
Click to view source code excerpt (Bash)
When I began working at WestHost in March 2008, resetting passwords was a slow, manual process. I quickly learned this fact during my first week of training when password resets were among the only support tickets I knew how to resolve. Although a shell command existed to actually change an account password, it was the responsibility of the technician to ensure the request for a password reset was legitimate, provide a new “random” password, and then somehow relay the new password to the client. Three minutes is a very conservative estimate of the time required to perform all of these steps. After I completed training and felt comfortable resolving all types of support requests, I used my free time to learn Bash shell scripting and develop a full-featured wrapper script for the existing change password command; I finished the first version of newpass in July 2008.
Today, newpass is on its 26th version and is used approximately 20 times per day. The script also integrates with the company’s support ticketing system, allowing technicians to simply provide a ticket number and newpass will automatically take care of verifying account security, resetting the password, and responding to the client’s ticket. This single script saves the company 30 hours of employee time per month.