adduser(8) - NetBSD Manual Pages

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ADDUSER(8)              NetBSD 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/passwd or /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 confuse mailers.  An ac-
     count 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 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 University of Califor-
     nia, Berkeley, we have groups for system staff, faculty, graduate stu-
     dents, 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/share/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/share/skel       skeletal login directory


SEE ALSO

     chpass(1),  finger(1),  passwd(1),  aliases(5),  passwd(5),  pwd_mkdb(8),
      vipw(8)


BUGS

     User information should (and eventually will) be stored elsewhere.

4th Berkeley Distribution        June 5, 1993                                1