Problem with User Passwords in Debian Linux

2 Hell and Back

Let me start by saying that I am a complete newbie to Debian, and I followed instructions as per the following page:

http://www.debianadmin.com/users-and-groups-administration-in-linux.html

I created users using the following syntax in the root terminal (acting as superuser):

# groupadd IS
# useradd -g IS -p password -d/home/IS -m username

When I try and log on to the relevant user, and enter the password I specified, it says Authentication has failed. Any ideas?

I had an Idea: I am aware of the usermod command to change passwords.. but how do I specify the user? Anyway - I should not have to change the password.

Khannie

I think you're adding a user called username and I'm guessing you want to add one called IS. Just sub in IS where you have username. Don't specify the password on the command line (security), instead after you have created the user, run

passwd IS

as root and enter the password you want for the IS user.

Skrynesaver

"useradd -p" doesn't take a plain text password, but rather the encrypted version. (see man useradd for details)

More usually people add the password after creating the user with the "passwd username" command

Edit and the reason for that is, as Khannie points out above, that it is blatantly unsafe as the encrypted password is available in the process table.

2 Hell and Back

Thanks guys, I did as you suggested and add the passwords afterwards instead.

When logging into the second user in a group I got this weird message about ICEdirectory (see pic below):

(by changing permissions on the folder I can now login but still get the warning - on two of the groups - on the third group both users login straight way)

This issue is logged here http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1841457&page=3


9 - WARNING - could not update ICEauthority file

d31b0y

Is there any reason why you want to use 'useradd' instead of 'adduser'?

http://linuxers.org/article/differences-between-useradd-and-adduser-commands