Creating a new user account from a shell script.

[CD-RW]

I'm trying to automate the process of upgrading as much as possible. I want to be able to create a new ordinary user account in a post installation bash script. This will allow me to create a user account from a script, without having to start a GUI in X11.

Reading the man page for useradd says:

-p, --password PASSWORD
The encrypted password, as returned by crypt(3).
The default is to disable the account.

There is not a crypt command on the system to create the encrypted password?

How do I create the encrypted password for a new user account

[wathek]

the crypt command is in the mcrypt package you need to install that one to get the crypt command

Linux Archive

[CD-RW]

Originally Posted by wathek

the crypt command is in the mcrypt package you need to install that one to get the crypt command

Thnks for that reply wathek. I have installed mcrpyt now. It appears that crypt has been replaced with the mcrypt command?

Thanks again!

[CD-RW]

I could not get on with the mcrypt command at all. So my way to create a new user with an active password from a bash script is this:

# -------------------------------------------------- #
# Create test user account for rodney.

echo "Creating new user account for rodney."

echo

useradd \
--comment 'User test account' \
--uid 505 \
--gid users \
-M \
rodney

# Create login password for rodney.
lusermod -P 'plain-text-password' rodney

# -------------------------------------------------- #

exit 0

The '-M' option does not create the user's home directory. Without '-M' the home directory is created.

See also: $pinfo useradd and $pinfo lusermod for more details.