How to properly re-establish users after a reinstall?

[Lisa Kachold]

Learning to edit systems files is an advanced process.

While I never limit my teaching to a dumbed down level, with "NEVER"
admonishments, I did not give you the "safety net rap" reserved for
the best and brightest fledgling systems people:

"ALWAYS copy any systems file you edit to backup before changes".

cp /etc/passwd /etc/passwd.$me

Once the changes are complete and written off as "all good" be sure to
delete all files with .$me {a cron can be setup to do this}.

Alternately, systems people setup a quick bash tool that will copy it
to $DATE, since they will be editing a great many files a day and need
to be able to see what happened when.

Editing /etc/passwd is simple, but if you are not sure, delete and
setup your user using command line adduser:

useradd - Create a new user or update default new user information
SYNOPSIS

useradd [-c comment] [-d home_dir]

    [-e expire_date] [-f inactive_time]
    [-g initial_group] [-G group[,...]]
    [-m [-k skeleton_dir] | -M] [-n] [-o] [-p passwd] [-r]
    [-s shell] [-u uid] login
useradd -D [-g default_group] [-b default_home]

    [-e default_expire_date] [-f default_inactive]
    [-s default_shell]

On 4/20/09, Craig White <craigwhite at azapple.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 2009-04-20 at 19:53 -0700, Lisa Kachold wrote:
>> Looks like your /home partition was being equated as /hda7 - which makes
>> sense.
>>
>> umount /dev/hda7
>> mkdir /home
>> mount -t ext3 (or whatever it is) /dev/hda7 /home
>> df -k
>> vi /etc/passwd
>> ls -al ~joe
>> ls -al ~pattie
>>
>>
>> You can change the mount point via /etc/fstab
>> You can change the users home via /etc/passwd
>> Be sure to chown/chgrp all the files to their corresponding users
>>
>> cd ~joe | chown -R joe:joe *
>> cd ~pattie | chown -R pattie:pattie *
> ----
> just a comment...I don't generally recommend to people to directly
> edit /etc/passwd, /etc/group, /etc/shadow (even with vi) just because
> the problems caused by a careless edit are truly vexing. Perhaps that is
> one way people can learn but it is not the thing to do for the most
> users.
>
> Craig
>
>
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