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I'm migrating my company's Windows 2000 domain to a Samba domain. In our windows domain, we have user names like "john.doe" or "ema.nymton". Very easy because it includes first name and last name (like our email addresses, etc). Is this also possible in Unix / Linux, because untill now, whenever I tried to add a user with a dot, it tells me it's invalid. Editing /etc/passwd directly and trying to change that user's password with /usr/bin/passwd doens't work. Do I need a escape char or something? All help / comments / advise welcome. Thanks.
I tried to add a user, as root, in my Mandrake 9.1 and got the same errors he got. It don't like the "." for some reason. I tried in several different places.
Can you replace that with something else or just leave out the "."?
There is likely a reason that it don't like it. I don't know what it is though.
Just letting you guys know I found the solution. Since Mandrake 9.1 / Redhad 9.0 / ... they don't allow dots anymore in 'useradd'. However, you can use the command 'luseradd' which still has all features like using dots. I find this very confusing. Why on earth would someone disallow use of dots in usernames? Anyway, you can also edit /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow yourself. Then doing a passwd on the newly created user lets you change the password.
Hi Guys.
With great excitement I read through the posts, but alas I get the following error...
Error creating group `jon.doe'.
Not surprisingly there is nothing in the passwd or shadow file to edit regarding the user as nothing was completed.
Any suggestions from here would be greatly appreciated (Mandrake 9.2)
Shot.
Hi again...
Just a note - on our mail server running 9.1, the luseradd command worked like a treat with the "." in the name, but on the new 9.2 I'm getting the error in the last post - "Error creating group 'j.doe'"
Any brilliant ideas?
Cheers
Thanks Dalek
Tried it (luseradd "jon.doe") but still get the same error (Error creating group `jon.doe'.)
This is insane - considering going back to 9.1!!!
Cheers..
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