password synchronization - newbie question

From: addevo (anonymous_at_discussions.microsoft.com)
Date: 04/27/04 

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2004 13:46:04 -0700

We are using SQL Server authentication in a new W2k system that is replacing a legacy UNIX system. I have a script that successfully recreates the user accounts, but of course I have to default the password. Our security folks will never agree to such a scheme, especially since I have read on this newsgroup that there is no way to force the users to change their passwords the first time they log on. Is there any way to port the users' UNIX passwords to SQL Server 2000? I can capture the encrypted UNIX passwords, and was hoping there was a way to use them to populate the "password" field of the master.sysxlogins table. Is the encryption used for UNIX in any way compatible or "translate-able" to the encryption used by SQL Server?

This would probably be much easier if we were using Windows authentication, but for our particular implementation, we have some other compelling reasons not to.