NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | CAVEATS | CONFIGURATION | FILES | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

NEWUSERS(8)              System Management Commands              NEWUSERS(8)

NAME         top

       newusers - update and create new users in batch

SYNOPSIS         top

       newusers [options] [file]

DESCRIPTION         top

       The newusers command reads a file (or the standard input by default)
       and uses this information to update a set of existing users or to
       create new users. Each line is in the same format as the standard
       password file (see passwd(5)) with the exceptions explained below:
       pw_name:pw_passwd:pw_uid:pw_gid:pw_gecos:pw_dir:pw_shell
       pw_name
           This is the name of the user.
           It can be the name of a new user or the name of an existing user
           (or a user created before by newusers). In case of an existing
           user, the user's information will be changed, otherwise a new
           user will be created.
       pw_passwd
           This field will be encrypted and used as the new value of the
           encrypted password.
       pw_uid
           This field is used to define the UID of the user.
           If the field is empty, a new (unused) UID will be defined
           automatically by newusers.
           If this field contains a number, this number will be used as the
           UID.
           If this field contains the name of an existing user (or the name
           of a user created before by newusers), the UID of the specified
           user will be used.
           If the UID of an existing user is changed, the files ownership of
           the user's file should be fixed manually.
       pw_gid
           This field is used to define the primary group ID for the user.
           If this field contains the name of an existing group (or a group
           created before by newusers), the GID of this group will be used
           as the primary group ID for the user.
           If this field is a number, this number will be used as the
           primary group ID of the user. If no groups exist with this GID, a
           new group will be created with this GID, and the name of the
           user.
           If this field is empty, a new group will be created with the name
           of the user and a GID will be automatically defined by newusers
           to be used as the primary group ID for the user and as the GID
           for the new group.
           If this field contains the name of a group which does not exist
           (and was not created before by newusers), a new group will be
           created with the specified name and a GID will be automatically
           defined by newusers to be used as the primary group ID for the
           user and GID for the new group.
       pw_gecos
           This field is copied in the GECOS field of the user.
       pw_dir
           This field is used to define the home directory of the user.
           If this field does not specify an existing directory, the
           specified directory is created, with ownership set to the user
           being created or updated and its primary group.
           If the home directory of an existing user is changed, newusers
           does not move or copy the content of the old directory to the new
           location. This should be done manually.
       pw_shell
           This field defines the shell of the user. No checks are performed
           on this field.
       newusers first tries to create or change all the specified users, and
       then write these changes to the user or group databases. If an error
       occurs (except in the final writes to the databases), no changes are
       committed to the databases.
       During this first pass, users are created with a locked password (and
       passwords are not changed for the users which are not created). A
       second pass is used to update the passwords using PAM. Failures to
       update a password are reported, but will not stop the other password
       updates.
       This command is intended to be used in a large system environment
       where many accounts are updated at a single time.

OPTIONS         top

       The options which apply to the newusers command are:
       -h, --help
           Display help message and exit.
       -r, --system
           Create a system account.
           System users will be created with no aging information in
           /etc/shadow, and their numeric identifiers are chosen in the
           SYS_UID_MIN-SYS_UID_MAX range, defined in login.defs, instead of
           UID_MIN-UID_MAX (and their GID counterparts for the creation of
           groups).
       -R, --root CHROOT_DIR
           Apply changes in the CHROOT_DIR directory and use the
           configuration files from the CHROOT_DIR directory.

CAVEATS         top

       The input file must be protected since it contains unencrypted
       passwords.

CONFIGURATION         top

       The following configuration variables in /etc/login.defs change the
       behavior of this tool:
       GID_MAX (number), GID_MIN (number)
           Range of group IDs used for the creation of regular groups by
           useradd, groupadd, or newusers.
           The default value for GID_MIN (resp.  GID_MAX) is 1000 (resp.
           60000).
       MAX_MEMBERS_PER_GROUP (number)
           Maximum members per group entry. When the maximum is reached, a
           new group entry (line) is started in /etc/group (with the same
           name, same password, and same GID).
           The default value is 0, meaning that there are no limits in the
           number of members in a group.
           This feature (split group) permits to limit the length of lines
           in the group file. This is useful to make sure that lines for NIS
           groups are not larger than 1024 characters.
           If you need to enforce such limit, you can use 25.
           Note: split groups may not be supported by all tools (even in the
           Shadow toolsuite). You should not use this variable unless you
           really need it.
       PASS_MAX_DAYS (number)
           The maximum number of days a password may be used. If the
           password is older than this, a password change will be forced. If
           not specified, -1 will be assumed (which disables the
           restriction).
       PASS_MIN_DAYS (number)
           The minimum number of days allowed between password changes. Any
           password changes attempted sooner than this will be rejected. If
           not specified, -1 will be assumed (which disables the
           restriction).
       PASS_WARN_AGE (number)
           The number of days warning given before a password expires. A
           zero means warning is given only upon the day of expiration, a
           negative value means no warning is given. If not specified, no
           warning will be provided.
       SUB_GID_MIN (number), SUB_GID_MAX (number), SUB_GID_COUNT (number)
           If /etc/subuid exists, the commands useradd and newusers (unless
           the user already have subordinate group IDs) allocate
           SUB_GID_COUNT unused group IDs from the range SUB_GID_MIN to
           SUB_GID_MAX for each new user.
           The default values for SUB_GID_MIN, SUB_GID_MAX, SUB_GID_COUNT
           are respectively 100000, 600100000 and 10000.
       SUB_UID_MIN (number), SUB_UID_MAX (number), SUB_UID_COUNT (number)
           If /etc/subuid exists, the commands useradd and newusers (unless
           the user already have subordinate user IDs) allocate
           SUB_UID_COUNT unused user IDs from the range SUB_UID_MIN to
           SUB_UID_MAX for each new user.
           The default values for SUB_UID_MIN, SUB_UID_MAX, SUB_UID_COUNT
           are respectively 100000, 600100000 and 10000.
       SYS_GID_MAX (number), SYS_GID_MIN (number)
           Range of group IDs used for the creation of system groups by
           useradd, groupadd, or newusers.
           The default value for SYS_GID_MIN (resp.  SYS_GID_MAX) is 101
           (resp.  GID_MIN-1).
       SYS_UID_MAX (number), SYS_UID_MIN (number)
           Range of user IDs used for the creation of system users by
           useradd or newusers.
           The default value for SYS_UID_MIN (resp.  SYS_UID_MAX) is 101
           (resp.  UID_MIN-1).
       UID_MAX (number), UID_MIN (number)
           Range of user IDs used for the creation of regular users by
           useradd or newusers.
           The default value for UID_MIN (resp.  UID_MAX) is 1000 (resp.
           60000).
       UMASK (number)
           The file mode creation mask is initialized to this value. If not
           specified, the mask will be initialized to 022.
           useradd and newusers use this mask to set the mode of the home
           directory they create
           It is also used by pam_umask as the default umask value.

FILES         top

       /etc/passwd
           User account information.
       /etc/shadow
           Secure user account information.
       /etc/group
           Group account information.
       /etc/gshadow
           Secure group account information.
       /etc/login.defs
           Shadow password suite configuration.
       /etc/pam.d/newusers
           PAM configuration for newusers.
       /etc/subgid
           Per user subordinate group IDs.
       /etc/subuid
           Per user subordinate user IDs.

SEE ALSO         top

       login.defs(5), passwd(1), subgid(5), subuid(5),useradd(8).

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the shadow-utils (utilities for managing
       accounts and shadow password files) project.  Information about the
       project can be found at ⟨http://pkg-shadow.alioth.debian.org/⟩.  If
       you have a bug report for this manual page, see 
       ⟨http://pkg-shadow.alioth.debian.org/getinvolved.php⟩.  This page was
       obtained from the project's upstream Git repository 
       ⟨git://anonscm.debian.org/git/pkg-shadow/shadow.git⟩ on 2017-07-05.
       If you discover any rendering problems in this HTML version of the
       page, or you believe there is a better or more up-to-date source for
       the page, or you have corrections or improvements to the information
       in this COLOPHON (which is not part of the original manual page),
       send a mail to man-pages@man7.org
shadow-utils 4.4                 07/05/2017                      NEWUSERS(8)

Pages that refer to this page: newgidmap(1)newuidmap(1)subgid(5)chpasswd(8)useradd(8)