Automating Adding Users

LinuxGeek · 01-24-2005, 01:22 AM

I have a large number of users (100s) that I want to make accounts for on my machine. I'm trying to find the fastest way to automate their addition, including setting passwords for them. I have a default password list I want to use (yes, I know this isn't the best security in the world

). I've tried writing a small bash script to automate this but to no avail. I've also used the following commands:

newusers - the problem with this is that it doesn't copy the contents of /etc/skel (I also don't remember if it creates the home directories or not)

useradd - I tried it with the -p option but that should take it as encrypted + it doesn't even create the home directories for you.

I've heard that Expect is good at doing this sort of thing. Any ideas? Thanks for your time.

masand · 01-24-2005, 03:05 AM

useradd can create directory i think with the -d option

-d home_dir
The new user will be created using home_dir as the
value for the user's login directory.

regards

LinuxGeek · 01-24-2005, 08:23 AM

Thanks masand. But what about automating password entry? I'd rather not have to do passwd <username> 100s of times.

homey · 01-24-2005, 09:11 AM

Code:

Make a temple for all new users when they are created:
I remove the .thunderbird so new users don't have the same email account setup. When the new user first logs in there may be a couple of messages about running programs as the first user. Just click on ignore and that message doesn't reappear.
rm -rf /etc/skel
mkdir /etc/skel
rsync -av --exclude='.thunderbird' /home/rctech/ /etc/skel

or

rm -rf /etc/skel
mkdir /etc/skel
cp -R /home/rctech/\. /etc/skel
rm -rf /etc/skel/.thunderbird

Here is my adduser from a file script.

The file /home/names.txt has the user names (lower case) , groups and the Linux/Samba password.
The Linux and Samba passwords are the same and the user should change them soon after login.
The groups can already exist.

For example.....

fred service 12qwaszx
sam hr 34erdfcv
joe maint 56tyghbn
sally sales 78uijkm

Code:

#!/bin/bash
#
# Ensure that root is running the script.
##
WHOAMI=`/usr/bin/whoami`
if [ $WHOAMI != "root" ]; then
echo "You must be root to add news users!"
exit 1
fi
#
clear
NEW_USERS="/home/names.txt"

cat ${NEW_USERS} | \
while read USER GROUP SMBPASS ; do
   
   groupadd ${GROUP} 2> /dev/null
   adduser ${USER} -g ${GROUP}

   (echo $SMBPASS; echo $SMBPASS) | passwd --stdin ${USER} > /dev/null
   echo Added user ${USER}

   smbpasswd -e ${USER} -w ${SMBPASS} > /dev/null
   (echo $SMBPASS; echo $SMBPASS) | smbpasswd -as ${USER}
   echo -e "${USER} = ${USER}" >> /etc/samba/smbusers
done

LinuxGeek · 01-24-2005, 01:18 PM

Thanks a lot homey. But from what I understand, you are configuring only samba passwords and not passwords for local / ssh access. I think the only difficulty in modifying this script would be to make the passwd command read the password from the script. Any ideas?

homey · 01-24-2005, 05:30 PM

Edit: I modified the script to get the linux user password and the samba password from the names.txt file.

(echo $SMBPASS; echo $SMBPASS) | passwd --stdin ${USER} > /dev/null
echo Added user ${USER}

smbpasswd -e ${USER} -w ${SMBPASS} > /dev/null
(echo $SMBPASS; echo $SMBPASS) | smbpasswd -as ${USER}