UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi there
I am a newbie. want to learn followings:

1. How can i create an mail only account.?
2. Where is the file containing mail accounts?What is the path?
3. Can i create mail accounts from PHP?

Thanx

Hi vbs

1. You create them as you would do with a 'normal' account, with one exception.

# useradd -s /bin/false McLachlan

The -s option specifies what shelll McLachlan should have. But we only want McLachlan to read his mail, not have shell access so we specify it to something that wont grant any useful access. In this case /bin/false.

2. You can find user account information in /etc/passwd

3. Not sure, it's been a very long time since I've used PHP. Check out www.php.net

Thank you very much.

no problem

By the way, you can specify any program as your 'shell'.
For example if you want to let your mail user change his/her password you could do this:

# useradd -s /usr/bin/passwd MikeWallace

Or edit any existing mail-user in /etc/passwd, and change their shell to /usr/bin/passwd:

dummy:x:1003:100::/dev/null:/usr/bin/passwd


(your passwd program may be located elsewhere... Try 'which passwd'). Now all Mike Wallace or dummy need to do is use telnet or ssh (use SSH!) to connect to your computer, specify login/pass and then change his password.

Good luck