[Tutor] adding users from a script

[alan.gauld@bt.com]

> I haven't got the foggiest as to whether introductory messages are
> obligatory 

Nope, just ask quetions :-)

> import whrandom
> rnd = whrandom.whrandom()
> 
> validfirst  = 
> "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ23456789"

You might find it easier in future to use:

validfirst = string.letters + string.digits[2:]

I notice you disallow 1 and 0 - any reason?

> pwlen = 8
> pw = ""
> idx = 0
> 
> while idx < pwlen:
> 	str = validfirst[rnd.randint(0,(len(validfirst)-1))]

      str = rnd.choice(validfirst)  # a bit easier?

> 	pw = pw + str
Could combine these two lines:

      pw = pw + rnd.choice(validfirst)

> 	idx = idx + 1
> 
> print "\nEnter your desired username:\n"
> nomme = raw_input (">>")
Why not combine these:
nomme = raw_input("\nEnter your desired username:\n>> ")

> os.system ('useradd ' + nomme) 
> 
> Now this is the part I got really stuck on
> os.system ('passwd ' + nomme) gets me a prompt 

Thats why you need to use popen or popen2.
They allow you to write to that prompt.

> correct syntax are far from clear. 

Treat it as a file. In your case open to write 
- you want to send data to it...
Try searching the ActiveState version of this list
archive for popen you should find lots of code examples.

That should solve it.

Alan G