[NTLUG:Discuss] Re: Create User Account

[Kenneth Loafman]

 From the man page (your friend):
        -p, --password PASSWORD
               The encrypted password, as returned by crypt(3)...

mkpasswd is a front-end to crypt(3).

It's not a good idea to use passwords on the command line anyway. 
'history' would reveal them, and they are visible in process display 
commands, besides being visible when you type them.  It's never too 
early (grandson or class) to start lessons on computer security.

...Ken


Dennis Rice wrote:
> I ran into this problem when I was teaching my class last week.  The 
> answer is simple, but not what expected.  If I recall correctly, it did 
> work back in RH 7.2.
> 
> When running the useradd newname -p password, the user is created and 
> the new password is placed into the shadow file in clear text.  
> Naturally this is invalid.
> 
> Athough I have not tried it out, I would suggest that if one created a 
> new password using the command mkpasswd, if it is installed on your 
> system, then copy/paste it into the original useradd newname -p 
> {encrypted passwd from mkpasswd}, then when loging on it would work.  
> But all of this is much harder than issuing the command pair useradd and 
> passwd.
> 
> Dennis
> 
> 
> 
> Charles Cashion wrote:
> I want to create a user account for my grandson.
> The computer is running FC4.
> when I ran
> [root]# useradd -p sonofjohn bcashion
> It created entries in /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow
> and it created /home/bcashion
> But when I tried
> [root]# su bcashion
> password: sonofjohn
> it would not accept "sonofjohn" as password.
> ...
> 
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