The most common aspect of managing users on a FreeBSD
system is adding new users to your system. The VPS v2 Virtual Server has three programs for
adding users to the account vadduser, adduser and pw.
vadduser
vadduser works as a
"wizard" (simple, step-by-step questions you answer). vadduser creates passwd/group entries, creates
the user home directory, and all necessary files. When using vadduser, press Enter
to accept the defaults. The [default entries] will be surrounded by square
brackets, for example [bob].
To use vadduser,
type the following from the UNIX shell:
# vadduser
You will need to provide the following information to
create a user:
-
Username
-
Password (twice)
-
User’s full name
-
User’s home directory
-
Account services, including ftp, web, e-mail, shell
-
The following is an example vadduser program:
# vadduser
Please supply answers to the series of questions below.
When a `default answer' is available, it will follow the question in square brackets.
For example, the question:
What is your favorite color? [blue]:
has the default answer 'blue'. Accept the default
(without any extra typing!) by pressing the <Enter> key -- or type your
answer and then press <Enter>.
Use the <Backspace> key to erase and aid correction
of any mistyped answers -- before you press <Enter>. Generally, once you
press
<Enter> you move onto the next question.
Once you've proceeded through all the questions, you will
be given the option of modifying your choices before any files are updated.
Hit ^C (Ctrl-C) at any time to quit without making
changes.
Press <Enter> to continue:
(1) User Name
E-mail/FTP usernames consist of up to 16 alphanumeric
characters, underscores and hyphens, but may not begin with a hyphen. Uppercase
letters are discouraged in usernames.
E-mail/FTP Username: bob
(2) Password
Now, enter a password for this E-mail/FTP account. For
security reasons you may want to use a password that is longer than 6
characters and that has at least one non alphabetic character. The password
will *not* be echoed to the screen and you will be required to type it twice.
E-mail/FTP Password:
Retype new password:
(3) User's Full Name
Now, enter the full name for this E-mail/FTP account.
Full Name: Bob
(4) Account Home Directory
Where would you like to put the home directory for this
account?
Enter "1" for an e-mail account home
directory: /home/bob
Or enter in any custom path.
Select a number above or enter a path [1]:
(5) Services
Please select the services that this account will be
using:
e-mail E-mail services
ftp FTP services
shell shell login
web WWW services
Enter the service name (e.g., "ftp",
"mail", etc.) to toggle that service for the account. Hit <return>
when you are done selecting/deselecting services for this user.
Select/deselect services [e-mail ftp shell web]:
Select a shell from the following list:
bash
csh
ksh
ksh93
sh
tcsh
zsh
Enter a shell: [tcsh]:
You will need to run 'vaddhost' to add websites for this
user.
'vaddhost' will create the proper directory hierarchy and
add the correct <VirtualHost ...> entry in your Apache configuration
file.
(6) Quotas
Enter filesystem quotas for this user. The quota should be
an integer
(no decimal fractions) in megabytes (e.g., 5 = 5
megabytes). Enter 0 for no quota.
Quota (in megabytes): 25
Account setup complete.
adduser
adduser is the
default FreeBSD way of adding users. adduser
creates passwd/group entries, the home directory, and dot files and even sends
the new user a welcome message.
adduser works as a
"wizard" (simple, step-by-step questions you answer) but requires you
to provide more information than vadduser.
You can provide options to adduser to
simplify the wizard interface even further.
Provide the following information to create a user:
To use adduser, type
the following:
# adduser -s -q
Note: Use option -verbose if you want to see more warnings
and questions or try to repair bugs.
The following is an example adduser program:
Enter username [^[a-z0-9_][a-z0-9_-]*$]:
Enter full name []: Schmoe, Jr.
Enter shell bash csh date ksh ksh93 no sh tcsh zsh [sh]:
bash
Enter home directory (full path) [/home/]:
Uid [1000]:
Enter login class: default []:
Login group []:
Login group is ``''. Invite into other groups: guest no
[no]:
Enter password []:
Enter password again []:
Name: joe
Password: ****
Fullname: Schmoe, Jr.
Uid: 1000
Gid: 1000 ()
Class:
Groups:
HOME: /home/
Shell: /usr/local/bin/bash
OK? (y/n) [y]:
Added user ``''
Add another user? (y/n) [y]: n
adduser has other
configuration defaults you can specify in the /etc/adduser.conf
file (adduser will even write this configuration
file for you if you do not use the –q
option).
See the adduser man
page for more details.
pw
You can use the pw
program to add users, unlike vadduser and
adduser, there is no wizard. You can make
changes using pw very quickly after you
have become familiar with it.
You will need to provide the following information to pw:
-
Username
-
UID
-
Name
-
Method
-
Group
-
Shell
The following is an example of the pw command:
# pw user add -n joe -c "Joseph Schmoe, Jr." -m
-h 0
At the end of the pw process, you will be prompted for the
user password. Use caution at this point since you will only be asked for the
user password once.
These command-line options are likely the only ones you
will use (unless you have more complex needs, of course, in which case the pw
man page will be more useful to you).
Note: Ignore the –Y
and –y options unless you're running
YP/NIS (a system comprised of network equivalents of passwd, group, hosts, and
other common services). Further, until you begin customizing policy information
and default startup files for new users (advanced techniques not covered in
this tutorial), you can ignore the -C, -D, -k,
and -L options. Unless you plan on
setting account expiration policies (i.e., an account will expire, or a user's
password will expire, forcing them to reset it), you can ignore the -e, and -p
options.
Note:
You can type user add as two words, or useradd as one word. The first syntax is
preferred because it reminds that user is interchangeable with group, and add
is interchangeable with del, mod.
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