1.\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1991, 1993 2.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" %sccs.include.redist.man% 5.\" 6.\" @(#)adduser.8 8.1 (Berkeley) 06/05/93 7.\" 8.Dd 9.Dt ADDUSER 8 10.Os BSD 4 11.Sh NAME 12.Nm adduser 13.Nd procedure for adding new users 14.Sh DESCRIPTION 15A new user must choose a login name, which must not already appear in 16.Pa /etc/passwd 17or 18.Pa /etc/aliases . 19It must also not begin with the hyphen 20.Ql Fl 21character. 22It is strongly recommended that it be all lower-case, and not contain 23the dot 24.Ql \&. 25character, as that tends to confuse mailers. 26An account can be added by editing a line into the passwd file; this 27must be done with the password file locked e.g. by using 28.Xr chpass 1 29or 30.Xr vipw 8 . 31.Pp 32A new user is given a group and user id. 33Login and user id's should be unique across the system, and often across 34a group of systems, since they are used to control file access. 35Typically, users working on similar projects will be put in the same groups. 36At the University of California, Berkeley, we have groups for system staff, 37faculty, graduate students, and special groups for large projects. 38.Pp 39A skeletal account for a new user 40\*(lqernie\*(rq 41might look like: 42.Bd -literal 43ernie::25:30::0:0:Ernie Kovacs,508 Evans Hall,x7925, 44 642-8202:/a/users/ernie:/bin/csh 45.Ed 46.Pp 47For a description of each of these fields, see 48.Xr passwd 5 . 49.Pp 50It is useful to give new users some help in getting started, supplying 51them with a few skeletal files such as 52.Pa \&.profile 53if they use 54.Pa /bin/sh , 55or 56.Pa \&.cshrc 57and 58.Pa \&.login 59if they use 60.Pa /bin/csh . 61The directory 62.Pa /usr/share/skel 63contains skeletal definitions of such files. 64New users should be given copies of these files which, for instance, 65use 66.Xr tset 1 67automatically at each login. 68.Sh FILES 69.Bl -tag -width /etc/master.passwdxx -compact 70.It Pa /etc/master.passwd 71user database 72.It Pa /usr/share/skel 73skeletal login directory 74.El 75.Sh SEE ALSO 76.Xr chpass 1 , 77.Xr finger 1 , 78.Xr passwd 1 , 79.Xr aliases 5 , 80.Xr passwd 5 , 81.Xr pwd_mkdb 8 , 82.Xr vipw 8 83.Sh BUGS 84User information should (and eventually will) be stored elsewhere. 85.Sh HISTORY 86The 87.Nm 88command appeared in 89.Bx 3.0 . 90