Adduser and /etc/passwd

[Derek Broughton]

Mario Vukelic wrote:

> 
> On Wed, 2007-08-15 at 10:57 +1000, Lev Lafayette wrote:
>> Just worries me that adduser doesn't parse the information
>> to /etc/passwd as it should...
> 
> You are misunderstanding the option. "man adduser":
> 
> --no-create-home Do not create the home directory, even if it doesn?t
> exist.
> 
> The point of the option is not that the user shall not have a home
> directory, but that adduser shouldn't create it (and fill with files
> from /etc/skel, and so on), presumably because you have another way to
> create it.
> 
> That's why it is called --no-create-home and not --no-home.
> 
> As Matthew said, you can set the shell to /bin/false, but I find it
> neater to repeat what Ubuntu does to disable root logins: Use "!" as the
> password in /etc/shadow

Probably you should use "usermod -L" (or moduser, or the GUI) rather than
actually modifying the password directly - _that_ is what Ubuntu does.

While a knowledgeable user _can_ edit the password files, it's really not a
good idea.
-- 
derek