Addition and modification of users

[Andreas Schmidl]

Hi,

I'm using the stable 15.04 system image for my BeagleBone Black Rev C. 
Currently for me it isn't possible to add a new user or edit an existing 
one. For such tasks typically adduser and usermod are used.
The nsswitch.conf is correctly configured out of box:
---------
# /etc/nsswitch.conf
#
# Example configuration of GNU Name Service Switch functionality.
# If you have the `glibc-doc-reference' and `info' packages installed, 
try:
# `info libc "Name Service Switch"' for information about this file.

passwd:         compat extrausers
group:          compat extrausers
shadow:         compat extrausers
----------

Because /etc/passwd, /etc/group and /etc/shadow are readonly mounted 
lib_extrausers have to be used. The libnss_extrausers library comes 
along with the system image. Also the group, shadow and passwd files are 
exists in a writeable folder (/var/lib/extrausers):
--------
(BeagleBoneBlack)ubuntu at sn-client-08:/var/lib/extrausers$ ls -l
total 20
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    15 Aug 31 17:53 group
-rw-r----- 1 root shadow  11 Jul 24 16:36 gshadow
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    52 Jul 24 16:36 passwd
-rw-r----- 1 root shadow 125 Aug 27 19:59 shadow
-rw------- 1 root root   125 Jul 24 16:36 shadow-
----------

Nevertheless if I try to create a new user it will end with the 
following error:
----------
(BeagleBoneBlack)ubuntu at sn-client-08:/var/lib/extrausers$ sudo adduser 
testuser
Adding user `testuser' ...
Adding new group `testuser' (1001) ...
groupadd: cannot lock /etc/group; try again later.
adduser: `/usr/sbin/groupadd -g 1001 testuser' returned error code 10. 
Exiting.
-----------

Is this a bug in snappy ubuntu core? Is there a different way to add 
users and edit existing ones? Apart from using a tool for these tasks I 
know that it's possible to manually edit group, passwd, ... but I think 
that's a bad approach.

Regards,
Andreas
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