Sometimes I need to encrypt password same “way” as it done in /etc/shadow. For example: to place it in the Puppet config. I think there is a plenty of ways to do it. Here is my favorite: mkpasswd

# Install "whois" package in case we don't have it

sudo apt-get install whois

# Get available encryption methods

mkpasswd -m help

# Encrypt using SHA-256

mkpasswd -m sha-256

# Encrypt using SHA-512

mkpasswd -m sha-512