Why not use a LDAP backend? Central user management is always a good thing <div class="gmail_quote">2009/6/18 Mika Pflüger <<a href="mailto:mail@mikapflueger.de">mail@mikapflueger.de</a>> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Hi, Am Mon, 25 May 2009 11:26:57 -0400 schrieb Andy Figueroa <<a href="mailto:figueroa@andyfigueroa.us">figueroa@andyfigueroa.us</a>>: > I, too, am a one-man IT department for a small school. > > With the included Linux/Unix tools, additional tools don't seem to be > called for. Here is the script that I use to populate a fresh > install of Edubuntu with users. This only shows two users, but my > real script is 153 of users long. it's just a bash/shell script that > you run from the command line (as root, or with sudo, of course): > > #!/bin/sh > useradd -m -G scanner,plugdev,audio,video,cdrom,games,fuse > -s /bin/bash cfreeman useradd -m -G > scanner,plugdev,audio,video,cdrom,games,fuse -s /bin/bash jbfreeman > echo "Run 'chpasswd < pw2' to establish initial password for new > user." > > The second file (pw2) is just a text file listing users and their > passwords like this: > > jbfreeman:notrealpw1 > cfreeman:notrealpw2 I thought it might be annoying to have to maintain two files and the idea of using OpenOffice sounded quite nice, so I created a little python script to add Users from a CSV-file. You can find it at: <a href="http://www.mikapflueger.de/batchadd/" target="_blank">http://www.mikapflueger.de/batchadd/</a> It would be nice if you could test this script (back up /etc/passwd, /etc/group and /etc/shadow first!) and tell me if I missed something. I think the issue with group memberships (groups scanner,plugdev,audio,video,cdrom,games,fuse) calls for a system wide solution: Just add gdm;*;*;Al0000-2400;scanner,plugdev,audio,video,cdrom,games,fuse to /etc/security/group.conf and all users logging in through gdm will be granted membership in all necessary groups. However, if this is not a solution for you, I could add a function to the script to provide a list of groups membership should be granted to. Any comments very appreciated. Cheers, Mika -- edubuntu-users mailing list <a href="mailto:edubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com">edubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com</a> Modify settings or unsubscribe at: <a href="https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/edubuntu-users" target="_blank">https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/edubuntu-users</a> </blockquote></div>