Arch Linux

void.pointer

Member

From: Dallas, TX

Registered: 2008-07-30

Posts: 239

Account creation

Hi,

I'm pretty new to user administration in linux, so I was wondering what the best method of creating accounts for users is. For example, normally to add a user I'd use "adduser", however this requires that I setup the password for this person. How can I create the user and the name of that user, but let them fill in the password and other personal details? Is there a system around to do this?

dschrute

Member

From: NJ, USA

Registered: 2007-04-09

Posts: 183

Re: Account creation

You can user passwd -e username to set the user's password to expire on the next login.  So if you did that after you created the user + set the password, they could use that password one time then (re)set it to one of their choosing.  Not exactly what you're looking for, but maybe helpful.
Another option is Usermin, which is related to Webmin.  This allows users to reset their passwords, and change their user info.  You can limit what the users have access to, but by default they can do quite a bit.
Also the create new user section of Webmin includes a "force user to change password" at login, so maybe you could use that to create the users.  Worth a look anyway.
Both Webmin and Usermin have available packages, so installing is easy...

void.pointer

Member

From: Dallas, TX

Registered: 2008-07-30

Posts: 239

Re: Account creation

Forcing the user to change their password at first login is a great idea. This will work perfectly. It would be nice to allow them to fill in their personal information along with their password when they first login, but I guess this is asking too much.

Webmin is awesome by the way! No longer will I use the command line to create users or groups!

dschrute

Member

From: NJ, USA

Registered: 2007-04-09

Posts: 183

Re: Account creation

It would be nice to allow them to fill in their personal information along with their password when they first login, but I guess this is asking too much.

I guess you could do something with sudo and usermod, but it probably wouldn't be very elegant.  Usermin allows users to change their info, so with a little modification to the default ACLs in Usermin, you may be able to tweak it to your liking.