adduser(8) [bsd man page]
ADDUSER(8) System Manager's Manual ADDUSER(8) NAME
adduser - procedure for adding new users DESCRIPTION
A new user must choose a login name, which must not already appear in /etc/passwdor /etc/aliases. It must also not begin with the hyphen (``-'') character. It is strongly recommended that it be all lower-case, and not contain the dot (``.'') character, as that tends to con- fuse mailers. An account can be added by editing a line into the passwd file; this must be done with the password file locked e.g. by using chpass(1) or vipw(8). A new user is given a group and user id. Login's and user id's should be unique across the system, and often across a group of systems, since they are used to control file access. Typically, users working on similar projects will be put in the same groups. At the Univer- sity of California, Berkeley, we have groups for system staff, faculty, graduate students, and special groups for large projects. A skeletal account for a new user "ernie" might look like: ernie::25:30::0:0:Ernie Kovacs,508 Evans Hall,x7925,642-8202:/a/users/ernie:/bin/csh For a description of each of these fields, see passwd(5). It is useful to give new users some help in getting started, supplying them with a few skeletal files such as .profile if they use "/bin/sh", or .cshrc and .login if they use "/bin/csh". The directory "/usr/skel" contains skeletal definitions of such files. New users should be given copies of these files which, for instance, use tset(1) automatically at each login. FILES
/etc/master.passwd user database /usr/skel skeletal login directory SEE ALSO
chpass(1), finger(1), passwd(1), aliases(5), passwd(5), mkpasswd(8), vipw(8) BUGS
User information should (and eventually will) be stored elsewhere. 4th Berkeley Distribution October 23, 1996 ADDUSER(8)
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CHPASS(1) General Commands Manual CHPASS(1) NAME
chpass - add or change user database information SYNOPSIS
chpass [ -a list ] [ user ] DESCRIPTION
Chpass allows editing of the user database information associated with user or, by default, the current user. The information is formatted and supplied to an editor for changes. The vi editor will be used unless the environmental variable EDITOR selects an alternate editor. When the editor terminates, the information is re-read and used to update the user database itself. Only the user, or the super-user, may edit the information associated with the user. Only the information that the user is allowed to change is displayed. Possible display items are as follows: Login: user's login name Password: user's encrypted password Uid: user's id Gid: user's login group id Change: password change time Expire: account expiration time Class: user's general classification Home Directory: user's home directory Shell: user's login shell Full Name: user's real name Location: user's normal location Home Phone: user's home phone Office Phone: user's office phone The login field is the user name used to access the computer account. The password field contains the encrypted form of the user's password. The uid field is the number associated with the login field. Both of these fields should be unique across the system (and often across a group of systems) as they control file access. While it is possible to have multiple entries with identical login names and/or identical user id's, it is usually a mistake to do so. Routines that manipulate these files will often return only one of the multiple entries, and that one by random selection. The group field is the group that the user will be placed in upon login. Since this system supports multiple groups (see groups(1)) this field currently has little special meaning. This field may be filled in with either a number or a group name (see group(5)). The change field is the date by which the password must be changed. The expire field is the date on which the account expires. Both the change and expire fields should be entered in the form ``month day year'' where month is the month name (the first three charac- ters are sufficient), day is the day of the month, and year is the year. The class field is currently unused. In the near future it will be a key to a termcap(5) style database of user attributes. The user's home directory is the full UNIX path name where the user will be placed on login. The shell field is the command interpreter the user prefers. If the shell field is empty, the Bourne shell (/bin/sh) is assumed. When altering a login shell, and not the super-user, the user must select an approved shell from the list in /etc/shells. The last four fields are for storing the user's full name, office location, and home and work telephone numbers. The super-user is also allowed to directly supply a user database entry, in the format specified by passwd(5), as an argument to the -a option. This argument must be a colon (``:'') separated list of all the user database fields, although they may be empty. Once the information has been verified, chpass uses mkpasswd(8) to update the user database. This is run in the background, and, at very large sites could take several minutes. Until this update is completed, the password file is unavailable for other updates and the new information will not be available to programs. FILES
/etc/master.passwd The user database /etc/shells The list of approved shells SEE ALSO
login(1), finger(1), getusershell(3), passwd(5), mkpasswd(8), vipw(8) Robert Morris and Ken Thompson, UNIX password security BUGS
User information should (and eventually will) be stored elsewhere. 4th Berkeley Distribution March 12, 1989 CHPASS(1)