Add a User with Specific Home Directory,
Default Shell and Custom Comment
The following command will create a user ‘ravi‘ with home directory
‘/var/www/tecmint‘, default shell /bin/bash and adds extra information about
user.
[root@tecmint ~]# useradd -m -d /var/www/ravi -s
/bin/bash -c "TecMint Owner" -U ravi
In the above command ‘-m -d‘ option creates a user with specified home
directory and the ‘-s‘ option set the user’s default shell i.e. /bin/bash. The ‘-c‘
option adds the extra information about user and ‘-U‘ argument create/adds a
group with the same name as the user.
12. Add a User with Home Directory,
Custom Shell, Custom Comment and
UID/GID
The command is very similar to above, but here we defining shell as ‘/bin/zsh‘
and custom UID and GID to a user ‘tarunika‘. Where ‘-u‘ defines new
user’s UID (i.e. 1000) and whereas ‘-g‘ defines GID (i.e. 1000).
[root@tecmint ~]# useradd -m -d /var/www/tarunika -s
/bin/zsh -c "TecMint Technical Writer" -u 1000 -g 1000
tarunika
13. Add a User with Home Directory, No
Shell, Custom Comment and User ID
The following command is very much similar to above two commands, the
only difference is here, that we disabling login shell to a user called ‘avishek‘
with custom User ID (i.e. 1019).
Here ‘-s‘ option adds the default shell /bin/bash, but in this case we set login
to ‘/usr/sbin/nologin‘. That means user ‘avishek‘ will not able to login into the
system.
[root@tecmint ~]# useradd -m -d /var/www/avishek -s
/usr/sbin/nologin -c "TecMint Sr. Technical Writer" -u
1019 avishek
14. Add a User with Home Directory,
Shell, Custom Skell/Comment and User ID
The only change in this command is, we used ‘-k‘ option to set custom
skeleton directory i.e. /etc/custom.skell, not the default one /etc/skel. We
also used ‘-s‘ option to define different shell i.e. /bin/tcsh to user ‘navin‘.
[root@tecmint ~]# useradd -m -d /var/www/navin -k
/etc/custom.skell -s /bin/tcsh -c "No Active Member of
TecMint" -u 1027 navin
15. Add a User without Home Directory,
No Shell, No Group and Custom
Comment
This following command is very different than the other commands explained
above. Here we used ‘-M‘ option to create user without user’s home directory
and ‘-N‘ argument is used that tells the system to only create username
(without group). The ‘-r‘ arguments is for creating a system user.
[root@tecmint ~]# useradd -M -N -r -s /bin/false -c
"Disabled TecMint Member" clayton
For more information and options about useradd, run ‘useradd‘ command on
the terminal to see available options.
Read Also: 15 usermod Command Examples
TagsAdduser, Linux Users, UseraddPost navigation
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117 thoughts on “The Complete Guide to
“useradd” Command in Linux – 15
Practical Examples”
Comment navigation
← Older Comments
1.
Binh Thanh Nguyen
September 1, 2020 at 4:28 am
Thanks, nice tips
Reply
2.
Yogesh Tiwari
August 26, 2020 at 7:20 pm
Hi,
Can you please tell us to how to create a user with password in single
command line on Debian
Thank you.
Yogesh
Reply
Ravi Saive
August 27, 2020 at 9:32 am
@Yogesh,
I hope this following command will help you to add user and password with
one single command.
$ sudo useradd username; echo password | passwd username --stdin
Reply
3.
Ray
April 21, 2020 at 4:57 am
I cannot get the ‘adduser‘ or ‘useradd‘ commands to work. Whenever I try I
get the prompt “bash: useradd: command not found”
Reply
Ravi Saive
April 21, 2020 at 10:42 am
@Ray,
First, locate the useradd location using:
# whereis useradd
Then, try adding /usr/sbin to your path.
Reply
4.
Harry
January 31, 2020 at 7:14 am
Thanks again for your response.
Quick question- If the user joins signs in/out the following day, it will be the
closet possible date of creation – correct?
e.g. I created user john on Jan 30 and the sign joins organization on Jan 31
and signs in/out, this is when .bash_logout will be created -correct?
Thanks
Reply
5.
Harry
January 29, 2020 at 8:36 pm
I created a new user and it came up with some results, not so relevant to the
user creation date. However, it seems like showing me authentication success
or failure for the user.
Any further ideas?
Reply
Ravi Saive
January 30, 2020 at 11:50 am
@Harry,
To find out correct user creation date in Linux, you need to check the stats
of .bash_logout file in your home directory.
$ stat /home/tecmint/.bash_logout
Sample Output
File: /home/tecmint/.bash_logout
Size: 220 Blocks: 8 IO Block: 4096 regular file
Device: 803h/2051d Inode: 6162417 Links: 1
Access: (0644/-rw-r--r--) Uid: ( 1000/ tecmint) Gid: ( 1000/ tecmint)
Access: 2020-01-02 12:16:13.475201521 +0530
Modify: 2019-02-15 17:23:35.675059936 +0530
Change: 2019-02-15 17:23:35.675059936 +0530
Birth: -
In the output above highlighted, shows the correct user creation date..
Reply
6.
Harry
January 28, 2020 at 8:18 pm
I installed and run without any luck. It returned no results. I double-
checked /etc/passwd to confirm if the user I am testing with existed.
I checked the status and restarted the service auditd.
# systemctl status auditd
# systemctl restart auditd
Is there anything I am missing?
Thanks
Reply
Ravi Saive
January 29, 2020 at 10:38 am
@Harry,
You just installed auditd, so it will not track existing users. Try to create a
new user and see..
Reply
7.
harry
January 27, 2020 at 5:03 am
Hey,
How can I create a user which shows the date of creation (date stamp) so that
IS security can audit it, down the road. It would be great if it is for RHEL or
Ubuntu distros.
Thanks
Reply
Ravi Saive
January 27, 2020 at 2:03 pm
@Harry,
To Find Out When a User is Created in Linux, you can check the stat
of .bash_logout file, as this file is created upon the user’s first logout.
# stat /home/username/.bash_logout
Reply
Harry
January 27, 2020 at 8:05 pm
Thank you for your quick response.
At work, I have a scenario where we generally create a user a day in
advance of his joining date. If I follow, what you said I can get
approximation and not exact date as a user will log in and logout the
following day. However, our IS security team wants to know the time
stamp of user creation or their audit. Do you recommend any other way
to know the creation date?
Reply
Ravi Saive
January 28, 2020 at 11:16 am
@Harry,
If you have auditd installed on the system, you can find out the user
creation date and time.
# aureport --auth | grep username
Alternatively, you can find the user creation in /var/log/secure file..
Reply
8.
SAURABH RAJPUT
January 15, 2020 at 10:03 am
I am not able to set a password for a new user, it shows heading New
password but it does not type anything neither any alphabetical letter nor a
number.
Please help me.
Reply
9.
madhav
June 6, 2019 at 2:12 pm
Example 5)
if the user is already exit command should be:
# usermod -G admins,webadmin,developers tecmint
If you are adding the new user to additional groups then command:
# useradd -G
is correct…
Reply
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