projects / unix-history / blame
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1 | .\" Copyright (c) 1980 The Regents of the University of California. |
| 2 | .\" All rights reserved. | |
| 902f6982 | 3 | .\" |
| 0cf4286e | 4 | .\" %sccs.include.redist.man% |
| 0de23b92 | 5 | .\" |
| 0cf4286e | 6 | .\" @(#)adduser.8 6.7 (Berkeley) %G% |
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7 | .\" |
| 8 | .TH ADDUSER 8 "" | |
| 9 | .UC 4 | |
| 10 | .SH NAME | |
| 11 | adduser \- procedure for adding new users | |
| 12 | .SH DESCRIPTION | |
| 13 | A new user must choose a login name, which must not already appear in | |
| b3e3a15e | 14 | .IR /etc/passwd or |
| 0cf4286e | 15 | .IR /etc/aliases . |
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16 | It must also not begin with the hyphen (``-'') character. |
| 17 | It is strongly recommended that it be all lower-case, and not contain | |
| 18 | the dot (``.'') character, as that tends to confuse mailers. | |
| 19 | An account can be added by editing a line into the passwd file; this | |
| 20 | must be done with the password file locked e.g. by using | |
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21 | .IR chpass (1) |
| 22 | or | |
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23 | .IR vipw (8). |
| 24 | .PP | |
| 25 | A new user is given a group and user id. | |
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26 | Login's and user id's should be unique across the system, and often across |
| 27 | a group of systems, since they are used to control file access. | |
| 0de23b92 | 28 | Typically, users working on similar projects will be put in the same groups. |
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29 | At the University of California, Berkeley, we have groups for system staff, |
| 30 | faculty, graduate students, and special groups for large projects. | |
| 902f6982 | 31 | .PP |
| 0de23b92 | 32 | A skeletal account for a new user \*(lqernie\*(rq might look like: |
| 902f6982 | 33 | .IP |
| b3e3a15e | 34 | ernie::25:30::0:0:Ernie Kovacs,508 Evans Hall,x7925,642-8202:/a/users/ernie:/bin/csh |
| 902f6982 | 35 | .PP |
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36 | For a description of each of these fields, see |
| 37 | .IR passwd (5). | |
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38 | .PP |
| 39 | It is useful to give new users some help in getting started, supplying | |
| 40 | them with a few skeletal files such as | |
| 41 | .I \&.profile | |
| 42 | if they use \*(lq/bin/sh\*(rq, or | |
| 43 | .I \&.cshrc | |
| 44 | and | |
| 45 | .I \&.login | |
| 46 | if they use \*(lq/bin/csh\*(rq. | |
| 47 | The directory | |
| 0cf4286e | 48 | \*(lq/usr/share/skel\*(rq contains skeletal definitions of such files. |
| 902f6982 | 49 | New users should be given copies of these files which, for instance, |
| 0de23b92 | 50 | use |
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51 | .IR tset (1) |
| 52 | automatically at each login. | |
| 53 | .SH FILES | |
| 54 | .ta 2i | |
| 0de23b92 | 55 | /etc/master.passwd user database |
| 902f6982 | 56 | .br |
| 0cf4286e | 57 | /usr/share/skel skeletal login directory |
| 902f6982 | 58 | .SH SEE ALSO |
| 0de23b92 | 59 | chpass(1), finger(1), passwd(1), aliases(5), passwd(5), mkpasswd(8), vipw(8) |
| 902f6982 | 60 | .SH BUGS |
| 0de23b92 | 61 | User information should (and eventually will) be stored elsewhere. |