How to create user with password assigned

admin — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 12:56:56 +0000

If you create new users (as root) using

# useradd –m tux

You will have created a newuser with it being disabled. This means that the password entry (the 2nd column) in the /etc/shadow will have a ! as the entry, i.e.

tux:!:14343:0:99999:7:::

You can use a script to go through it and change the ! to the encrypted password (which you can create earlier) but you must be aware that existing users that are disabled will have the 2nd field starting with !.

The -p option on useradd will require the encrypted password as the given parameter. This will be cumbersome if you are trying to use the script to create a set of new users and you will have to encrypt the individual passwords prior to using the useradd with the -p option.

In order to create a newuser with a password assigned, you can use

# useradd –m tux
# echo welcome | passwd –stdin tux

Or you can copy the following script and use it to create a new user with password and home directory.

#!/bin/sh
if [ $# –ne 2 ]; then
echo “Usage: $0 ”
exit 1
fi
useradd –m $1
echo $2 | passwd –stdin $1

There are other ways to do it as well, but this is an easy way to understand it. Have fun!

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How to create user with password assigned

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How to recover OpenSuse Lost Root Password

admin — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 06:19:51 +0000

Hopefully not but from time to time, we may somehow forgot what our root password is. This can happen in the case where you are managing a teaching laboratory, CAD/CAM workstations or your grandmother’s OpenSuSE PC! These are situations where once the machine is setup, you rarely need to have system administration access. So, the first answer is … re-install!

Heck no, an easier way is to

Boot into single user mode
Change password
Reboot

Booting into single user mode

Assuming that you did not password protect your GRUB boot loader (default boot loader for most Linux distribution), to boot into single user mode in most Linux distribution, you simply need to ask it to boot into single user mode (runlevel 1) but as rightly pointed out (see comment), in OpenSuSE, instead of simply pressing “1” when greeted with the following screen, you need to instead input “init=/bin/sh“. By pressing “1″, you will still be required to enter the root password.

GRUB startup

(Note, not all GRUB screens are like that, if by pressing “1”, it boots immediately, then the next time, press ESC to go to the text based menu. From there, select the entry and press “e” to edit and then go to the boot instruction line and press “e” again. You can then add the “1” at the end of the command. Press “b” after that to boot)

Change password

Once in single user mode, you should just get the following command line prompt.

your-hostname:~ #

You are actually logged in as root (superuser) and you can change the password from there.

your-hostname:~ # passwd
Changing password for root.
New Password:

Enter your new password (and this time remember it!). You should see the following to confirmed that the password has changed.

Reenter New Password:
Password changed.

Reboot

Simlpy type,

your-hostname:~ # reboot

Your root password has been reset!