Hi there,

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.

Timpie.

definetely yes, it can add user with dot for ex: john.doe.
can you give us some error messages when try to add user with dot?

Well, when I open a console and type (as root)

# adduser john.doe
adduser: invalid user name 'john.doe'

When I open up Mandrake's user management program, and try to add a user named john.doe, it gives the error :

The user name must contain only lower cased letters, number, '-' and '_'

When I simply edit /etc/passwd and add the line:
john.doe:x:505:100:John Doe:/home/john.doe:/bin/bash
save, quit and type:

# passwd john.doe
Changing password for user john.doe
passwd: Authentication token manipulation error

I use shadow passwords, perhaps that has something to do with it?

Greets,
Timpie

Ok lets make it clear first, i think the command you given was wrong, it should be :
useradd john.doe
not
adduser john.doe

In Mandrake 'adduser' is a symbolic link to 'useradd'. I was too lazy to check which one was the real command. Anyway, doing:

# useradd john.doe
useradd: invalid user name 'john.doe'

gives the same problem.

Timpie.

try to use root priviledge to add user
su -
enter your passwd
useradd john.doe

I am root when performing the commands.

Timpie.

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.

Later

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.

Greets,
Tim.

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

Out of curiosity, try putting quotes around it, the whole user name. That works for filenames that have a space, may work.

Later

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..

What happens if you try to create the group first (with groupadd, or maybe in this case lgroupadd)?

hey Guy
This is what I get.....

[root@mail root]# lgroupadd jon.doe
Group creation failed.
[root@mail root]# groupadd jon.doe
groupadd: jon.doe is a not a valid group name

so the lgroupadd tries, and the groupadd simply isn't interested!! grrrr