Need help with creating a new user and backing up a partition

shshivam · 10-31-2012, 01:38 PM

I have to do the following in a shell script:

1. Create a new user. Ask for the username, full name, and password. Then use this information to create a new user in the system.

2. Backup an entire partition. Ask for the partition name (directory associated with that partition) and the target location to save the backup file. Then make a copy of that directory in the desired location as a single archive file, with current date as the file extension.

This is what i have so far:

Code:

read input
     case $input in
        1)
          echo "Enter Username:"
          read username
          echo "Enter Full Name:"
          read name
          echo "Enter password:"
          read pass
          sudo useradd -m $user
          sudo passwd $user
          echo "User added"
          ;;
        2)
          echo "Enter partition name:"
          read partName
          echo "Enter target location:"
          read location
          dump 0u $location $partName
          echo "Done"
          ;;

For the first one, it creates a user but Im not able to log in to it. Also is there a way to assign the user the password the user enters?
I have no clue on how to do the second part.

unSpawn · 10-31-2012, 03:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shshivam

is there a way to assign the user the password the user enters?

See 'man useradd' ("-p") or 'man chpasswd'? There's more options from using 'openssl passwd' to Perl to probably distro-specific ones.
*BTW changing passwords this way completely bypasses any password strength checking if the machine or service uses PAM. It really should be a temporary password that must be changed on first login.
**Do check the account name doesn't exist and deny everything that could generate errors.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shshivam

I have no clue on how to do the second part.

Making a backup of user directories and files with the current date as file extension isn't difficult. But backing up an entire partition doesn't make sense unless each user has its own home partition (or the user is supposed to know the partition name as you're requiesting input?). W/o error checking and asserting users have a directory in /home/ as well as local mail spool, crontab etc:

Code:

echo "Current user name: "; read CURNAME; [ -d "/home/${CURNAME}" ] && BACKUPFILES="/home/${CURNAME}"
BACKUPFILES="${BACKUPFILES} $(find /var -maxdepth 10 -type f -user $CURNAME 2>/dev/null)"
tar -cf "/path/to/$CURNAME-$(date +'%Y%m%d').tar" "${BACKUPFILES}"

shshivam · 10-31-2012, 04:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by unSpawn

Making a backup of user directories and files with the current date as file extension isn't difficult. But backing up an entire partition doesn't make sense unless each user has its own home partition (or the user is supposed to know the partition name as you're requiesting input?). W/o error checking and asserting users have a directory in /home/ as well as local mail spool, crontab etc:

Code:

echo "Current user name: "; read CURNAME; [ -d "/home/${CURNAME}" ] && BACKUPFILES="/home/${CURNAME}"
BACKUPFILES="${BACKUPFILES} $(find /var -maxdepth 10 -type f -user $CURNAME 2>/dev/null)"
tar -cf "/path/to/$CURNAME-$(date +'%Y%m%d').tar" "${BACKUPFILES}"

Yeah the user is supposed to know the partition name,the desired location of the backup file and the instructions require me to back up an entire partition. This has nothing to do with the users, or they having directories/partition's of their own This is not supposed to be a practical script, so I dont need to worry about errors.

Also, while creating a new user, how do I add the name of the user to the account?

unSpawn · 10-31-2012, 06:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shshivam

This is not supposed to be a practical script, so I dont need to worry about errors.

Famous last words ;-p

Quote:

Originally Posted by shshivam

while creating a new user, how do I add the name of the user to the account?

'man useradd', look for "comment field".

shshivam · 10-31-2012, 07:03 PM

So how do I backup an entire partition and have the current date as the file extension?

unSpawn · 10-31-2012, 07:27 PM

In what way does a mount point differ from any other directory for backup purposes?

shshivam · 10-31-2012, 07:36 PM

Is there a way to do it with the "dump" command rather than "tar"?
Also I want the user to be able to specify a desired location where the backup will be made.

Would this work?

Code:

echo “Enter Partition address "; read partAddress; echo “Enter destination address:”; read reqAddress
tar -cf "$reqAddress-$(date +'%Y%m%d').tar" "${partAddress}"