CentOS - Nov 2008 - adduser vs. useradd

Hi,

To add a user to the system on the commandline, I usually use the 
adduser command.

# adduser newuser

And that's it. I've been using that command probably out of an old 
habit, since I've been a long-time Slackware user before. But now I 
wanted to dig a bit deeper, and some details puzzle me.

Whereas on Slackware, 'adduser' is an interactive shell script to create
a user so that basically you don't have to memorize all the
'useradd'
switches, CentOS' 'adduser' is a mere symbolic link to
'useradd'.

But when I add a new user (# adduser newuser), I don't use any switches, 
say to specify the shell, the home directory, the password expiration 
delay, etcetera. I understand that it is Red Hat (CentOS) tradition to 
create a separate group for each user. For example, user kikinovak also 
belongs to a group kikinovak. And when I create a new user 'newuser', 
the 'newuser' group also got somehow created. Plus, the new user also 
seems to have his own user profile, with a default .bashrc and so on. My 
only explanation for that is that CentOS' 'useradd' command
doesn't work
like the traditional UNIX useradd command and uses a few switches by 
default. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Any light on this?

Niki

On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 3:28 PM, Niki Kovacs <contact at kikinovak.net>
wrote:
> Hi,
>
> To add a user to the system on the commandline, I usually use the adduser
> command.
>
> # adduser newuser
>
> And that's it. I've been using that command probably out of an old
habit,
> since I've been a long-time Slackware user before. But now I wanted to
dig a
> bit deeper, and some details puzzle me.
>
> Whereas on Slackware, 'adduser' is an interactive shell script to
create a
> user so that basically you don't have to memorize all the
'useradd'
> switches, CentOS' 'adduser' is a mere symbolic link to
'useradd'.
>
> But when I add a new user (# adduser newuser), I don't use any
switches, say
> to specify the shell, the home directory, the password expiration delay,
> etcetera. I understand that it is Red Hat (CentOS) tradition to create a
> separate group for each user. For example, user kikinovak also belongs to a
> group kikinovak. And when I create a new user 'newuser', the
'newuser' group
> also got somehow created. Plus, the new user also seems to have his own
user
> profile, with a default .bashrc and so on. My only explanation for that is
> that CentOS' 'useradd' command doesn't work like the
traditional UNIX
> useradd command and uses a few switches by default. Please correct me if
I'm
> wrong.
>
> Any light on this?
>
> Niki
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS mailing list
> CentOS at centos.org
> http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
>
Hi there , you are almost right
adduser is only a symbol-link of the useradd in CentOS , for my
explanation , it may be security-related
you know , to use useradd , you can also specify the home dir,group
and so on , but script codes have danger
adduser under some distros such as archlinux,slackware is a
bash-script , so if you think it's more convenient to use a
user-friendly adduser written in bash , you can do it yourself , but
before that you should know exactly how to create a new user without
useradd-like utilities

Cheers

-- 
Keep It Simple Stupid
Thomas X. Iverson

On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 11:28 PM, Niki Kovacs <contact at kikinovak.net>
wrote:
> Hi,
>
> To add a user to the system on the commandline, I usually use the adduser
> command.
>
> # adduser newuser
>
> And that's it. I've been using that command probably out of an old
habit,
> since I've been a long-time Slackware user before. But now I wanted to
dig a
> bit deeper, and some details puzzle me.
>
> Whereas on Slackware, 'adduser' is an interactive shell script to
create a
> user so that basically you don't have to memorize all the
'useradd'
> switches, CentOS' 'adduser' is a mere symbolic link to
'useradd'.
>
Did you try 'man adduser' or 'man useradd?'  There's lots of
good info there....

mhr