Hi,

I'm running mandrake 8.2 and been playing around trying to learn a few things.

I had one user on my machine, ME, and all was fine. I added Me to a the apache group so I could write some php into /var/www/html. All was going well.

Then I tried to add another user, using- useradd bob
but I get back:

vipw lockfile (/etc/ptmp) is present!

and that's it.

If I try using userDrake I also get a similar message. Before I added Me to the apache group I could use this with no problems.

What's gone wrong and how can I fix it?

I've done some searching but can't find the answer to this, but I have noticed people talking about adding users and having to copy files to the new users home directory, etc/skel, and other such things. I thought 'useradd bob' did everything for you, or have I got hold of the wrong end of the stick?..........

All answers, thoughts or suggestions gratefully received.

Well from the message it looks like the file /etc/ptmp is a temporary lockfile probably to prevent screw ups when two people try to add users at the same time.
Maybe you would want to look at the contents of the file just in case. But I think you can safely remove it and then it should continue. Maybe you will just want to rename it in case it needs to be kept.

But the useradd command should copy all the files from /etc/skel unless you delibrately specify that it shouldn't do that.

Ok I'll give that a try tonight when I finish work.

I'll let you know what happens.

Thanks

That worked, thanks.

My quest for knowledge can now continue!