Command newusers vs useradd/adduser

[cotton]

So, I'm wondering if there are any major "under the hood" differences between command 'newusers' and 'useradd/adduser" on Linux.

I do understand newusers uses a file, but is there any major difference in how the accounts are created or why one is superior to the other/buggy?

Thanks!

[Dje4321]

Newusers is for updating/adding users in batch whereas adduser is for a single user.

any major difference in how the accounts are created

should be zero differences because the information is stored in /etc/passwd and follow a very strict standard.

why one is superior to the other/buggy?

newusers would be used in a very large linux envrioment where user information changes are done in batch.

you could have something like a master user panel, passwd reset panel, etc that outputs the data onto a file and have a cron job for newusers that reads that file and makes the changes needed.

if you want to learn more about how users and groups are manged in linux then i have a excellent post in my #ult series Insert comment about shilling your own posts here

The Ultimute Linux Tutorial part 3

This tutorial is coming much later than i wanted because i have been trying to think of a good way to approach this and what to cover since there is alot to cover while keeping it compact enough to not overwhelm the user. Root is user identifier 0 or other wise known as UID 0. It is the highest privileged user in linux and has direct access to all hardware and software on the system. Most of the time on a terminal root mode is specified with a # instead of a $. We will get into hardware when we cover /dev and disk management in the next tutorial. You can access stuff like the memory and processes directly in /proc but i wont go into detail about that in this tutorial. Lets go over some very basic commands with root sudo foo | runs foo as root. sudo -i | logins in as root sudo su | same as the command above sudo -s /bin/bash su | logins in as root and uses the /bin/bash sudo !! | will run the previous command and append sudo to the front of it check below for a video about shell expansion sudo -u dje4321 bash | runs bash as user dje4321 Note that sudo means supstitute user do. This is useful as some commands will require root to prevent stuff like privilege escalation from happening. Lets move onto users. Users on linux may be a person using the computer or a service running on the computer. Some of these services may include stuff like sshd, ftp, etc. You can find out what users are on the system by reading /etc/passwd. The layout for /etc/passwd is simple though you should never edit it by hand. dje4321:x:1000:1000:Jane Doe:/home/dje4321:/bin/bash here is a example of what a entry in /etc/passwd should look like. Each part of the entry is separated by a : and has simple formatting to it. dje4321 - specifys the username x - specifys that the user has a encrypted password stored in /etc/shadow 1000 - the UID of the user 1000 - the primary GID of the user Jane Doe - The comment of the user. In this case it is used to specify a name /home/dje4321 - th…

[cotton]

It seems to assign users to uids greater than 65534. Wayyy higher than my others and doesn't add to gshadow.

Thoughts?

[Dje4321]

no clue. never used newusers before.

[Buckshee]

The max UID of a modern Linux is 4 billion or so as an unsigned 32 bit number, this works fine:

sudo useradd --uid 10000000 testing

I think for compatibility and such a max of 5 digits is recommended, but I just checked and ls -n seems to displayed the big number fine.

gshadow is passworded groups, I think it's analogous to share level passwords in Windows, the newgrp command activates it, not something I have ever used.