User Account Script

[bionik]

Hi,
Im trying to create regular user accounts from a text file. I have a text file with a list of users that need to be created. Can I use a script to do this? Thanks

[andutt]

OK...lets say your list looks like this and are called users.txt and are located in /tmp do like this

File format:

nisse1
user1
user2
user3
user4
user5
user6

The program below creating the accounts...

#!/bin/sh
#
# Creator:andutt@linuxforums.org
#
# Creates users from a file
#
FILE=/tmp/users.txt

if [ ! -f $FILE ]
   then
   echo "ERROR $FILE doesnt exist.."
   exit 1
else
  echo "Creating user accounts from $FILE"
fi

USERS=`cat $FILE`

for i in $USERS
     do
     echo "Creating user:$i"
     useradd -g users -m -c "Autocreated account $i" $i
done

echo
echo "Usercreation is completed"
echo

[sykkn]

You still end up manually setting the passwords. That's the worst part.

[Dolda2000]

That can be rather easily remedied, though.
Use an input file of this format instead:

user1
pass1
user2
pass2
...

Then use the following script.

#!/bin/sh
if [ $# -lt 1 ]; then
    echo "Usage: $0 [ -g grpname ] [ -r ] filename ..." >&2
    exit 1
fi
correct=
group=users
getpwd=y
while [ $# -ge 0 ]; do
    o="$1"
    shift
    case "$o" in
        -g)
            group="$1"
            shift
            ;;
        -r)
            if [ -z "$getpwd" ]; then
                getpwd=y
            else
                getpwd=
            fi
            ;;
        *)
            correct=y
            if [ "$o" != - ]; then
                exec 3<"$o"
            else
                exec 3<&0
            fi
            while &#58;; do
                read username <&3
                if &#91; -n "$getpwd" &#93;; then
                    read password <&3
                else
                    password="$&#40;dd bs=6 count=1 </dev/urandom 2>/dev/null | mimencode&#41;"
                    echo "$username $password" >>passwords
                fi
                if &#91; -z "$username" &#93;; then break; fi
                useradd -g "$group" -m "$username"
                passwd --stdin "$username" <<<"$password"
            done
            exec 3<&-
            ;;
    esac
done
if &#91; -z "$correct" &#93;; then
    echo "No users were created" >&2
fi

As you can see, this script also supports generation of 8-character random passwords by using the -r switch. In that case, the input file format is similar to what andutt suggested and it outputs the passwords to a file called "passwords". It also supports multiple input files and usage of stdin. For example, the following usage might be convenient:

awk '{if($1 == "thisschool") print $2;}' | ./genuser -g teachers teachers.in -g students -r -

Note, however, that I haven't actually tried this script; I just wrote it down now. Therefore, check it through for typos before using it in a real environment.

[bionik]

Thanks a lot for your help, the scripts worked great.