create home directories after create users

Question

I created some users with:

$ useradd john

and I forgot to specify the parameter -m to create the home directory and to have the skeleton files copied to each user. now I want to do that, and I don't want to recreate all users (there must be an easier way). so, is there any way to create the user directories and copy the skeleton files?

I thought about creating the directories, chowning them to the corresponding user, copying all the skeleton files and chowning them to the corresponding user. but if there's a command like useradd -m that doesn't create the user again, but create the directories, it'd be better.

I can't help but feel Rahul has the best answer to your question. Maybe you should revisit your accepted answer? — , Dec 21 '15 at 06:08

score 135 · Answer 1 · answered May 17 '13 at 03:59

135

Also you can use mkhomedir_helper

Usage: /sbin/mkhomedir_helper <username> [<umask> [<skeldir>]]

answered May 17 '13 at 03:59

Rahul Patil

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This is the only answer that actually answers the question without some 10 line script. – SineSwiper Jan 06 '14 at 23:58
This and the pam answer are the best here, thanks. Never mess with those files by hand if you can avoid it. – h4unt3r Jan 21 '14 at 01:02
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dka@dev-04:/$ /sbin/mkhomedir_helper dka dka@dev-04:/$ cd bash: cd: /home/dka: No such file or directory – Dimitri Kopriwa Nov 19 '17 at 22:19
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@DimitriKopriwa have you tried it as root e.g. `sudo /sbin/mkhomedir_helper dka` ? the `/home` directory belongs to the `root` user, and so I would imagine one would have to be root to create a subdirectory thereof. – Jonathan Apr 30 '19 at 20:54

math · Answer 2 · 2015-08-11T15:11:59.130

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You will need to create the users directory manually. This requires three steps:

Create directory in compliance to /etc/passwd, usually there will be already a /home/login entry.
Copy initial files from /etc/skel
And finally set right permissions:
- mkdir /home/YOU
- cd /home/YOU
- cp -r /etc/skel/. .
- chown -R YOU.YOURGROUP .
- chmod -R go=u,go-w .
- chmod go= .

BTW: I always miss the -m option for useradd too. At least Debian based systems should have an adduser command, which I recommend over useradd. If you missed -m option it might also be worth considering to deluser and then recreate the user with proper options.

Edit: Added -r for copying also directories.

edited Aug 11 '15 at 15:11

answered May 12 '12 at 16:14

math

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Did that: usernameh=myusername; mkdir /home/$usernameh ; cp /etc/skel/* /etc/skel/.* /home/$usernameh; chown -R $usernameh:$usernameh /home/$usernameh; chmod -R 755 /home/$usernameh; – Aki Sep 26 '13 at 15:11
Personally I don't like the 755 chmod, as it allows users to spy into other users home's. I think each user should explicitly grant access to others. As `public_html` needs at least `x` bit set, I would recommend `chmod 0711` on each home, `public_html` and similar directories as default. – math Sep 27 '13 at 07:51
also, use cp -r for skel, as else it won't copy directories (.ssh). – Aki Sep 27 '13 at 12:22
On my system (Arch Linux on ARM) `cp -r /etc/skel/.*` recurse back into /etc/ and copies all data from here (/etc/skel/.* matches /etc/skel/.. I expect). The solution from http://superuser.com/a/61619/22153 seem to work: cp -r /etc/skel /home/user (/home/user must not exist before running the command) – zpon Dec 18 '14 at 20:10
I guess you shell globbing expands `*` with `.` (dot). So `..` is matched. Am I right? Many shells disable this per default, because of such behavior. Which shell do you use? – math Jan 20 '15 at 08:10
@math the best way is `cp -r /etc/skel/. .` – sabgenton Jul 27 '15 at 12:26
@math please update, it works in all circumstances mentioned. – sabgenton Jul 27 '15 at 12:32

score 17 · Accepted Answer · edited May 31 '13 at 06:37

17

This might sound like a silly idea, but if the users aren't actually doing anything, you could do:

cat /etc/passwd | cut -f 1 -d : >/tmp/users.list

Then edit /tmp/users.list to only contain the users you want. Then do:


for i in `cat /tmp/users.list`
do
    userdel $i
    useradd -m $i
done

However, many Redhat based distributions will create you a new home directory when you first login, providing it is specified in /etc/passwd where the directory should be.

To test that, do an "su - " and see if it does "the right thing". If it doesn't, the above script will work quite nicely, I think.

edited May 31 '13 at 06:37

quanta

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answered Sep 09 '09 at 15:02

dotwaffle

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yes, it worked, although it created new UIDs and GIDs (but that wasn't a problem). but I forgot to backup the passwords from /etc/shadow, now the users will have to set their passwords again =/ – cd1 Sep 09 '09 at 15:18
If he created them recently he might be able to do: cat /etc/passwd | egrep '^\:[0-9]{4}\:' | cut -f 1 -d : >/tmp/users.list That should only grab UID of valid users, and not system users. – David Rickman Sep 09 '09 at 15:18
What about passwords, do they remain the same? I fear not! – math May 12 '12 at 15:57
`for i in $(awk -F: '{print $1 }' /etc/passwd)` – Rahul Patil Jul 09 '13 at 06:48
why use grep or cut with cat and with pipe, why not directly in this way? cut -f 1 -d : < /etc/passwd > passwtmp – c4f4t0r Dec 12 '13 at 12:01
This is a horrible idea, you should avoid deleting users and messing with the /etc/passwd or /etc/group files by hand. It leads to nothing but tragedy. Try the answer with mkhomedir_helper below. – h4unt3r Jan 21 '14 at 01:01
to look only normal users we can use `getent passwd | awk -F: '$3 >= 500{print $1}'` – Rahul Patil Jan 31 '14 at 02:09

score 14 · Answer 4 · edited Mar 25 '13 at 09:24

14

mkdir -p /home/john
chown john:john /home/john
usermod -d /home/john john

That should do the trick I believe

edited Mar 25 '13 at 09:24

davidparks21

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answered Sep 09 '09 at 14:49

David Rickman

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it says: `usermod: no changes`. and the directory isn't created. it doesn't work either with the `-m` option. – cd1 Sep 09 '09 at 14:56
1

Alright. I figured out why that didn't work, useradd used to only put $HOME_DIR in /home unless you specified otherwise. It now seems to automatically put it in /home/$USER instead. A cheap way might be to usermod -d /home/john2 -m john then run usermod -d /home/john -m. – David Rickman Sep 09 '09 at 15:09
Nevermind that doesn't work either. – David Rickman Sep 09 '09 at 15:10
usermod didn't work for this case, but I didn't know about this command, it'll be useful to me :) – cd1 Sep 09 '09 at 15:19
1

Well at least you learned something new. – David Rickman Sep 09 '09 at 15:38
This does work if you add mkdir -p /home/john; chown john:john /home/john; usermod -d /home/john john. The folder is then there and it is that user's home directory. – earlonrails Dec 04 '12 at 21:55
1

You forgot to copy the contents of /etc/skel/ + chown recursive for those new files. usermod wouldn't work since here the directory was registered but not created, usermod won't do anything. – Aki Sep 26 '13 at 15:12
I submitted an edit, but the problem is that the commands are out of order: the usermod must occur first, then the create and chown. – Spencer K Jan 27 '15 at 01:30

score 10 · Answer 5 · answered May 12 '12 at 16:29

You can use something like pam_mkhomedir to prevent this from ever being an issue with any users in the future. pam_mkhomedir is a PAM module that automatically creates a user's home directory on login if it doesn't exist, and populates it with files from /etc/skel (or whatever skel directory you specify).

This is also a nicely scalable approach because it will continue to solve this problem if you ever switch your user repository over to a directory service like LDAP in the future.

score 4 · Answer 6 · answered Oct 08 '12 at 16:45

In my case, the home volume was corrupted and I decided just rebuild it from scratch since not much data involved but I want to keep users' login information, so I recreated the home directories manually with this script:

#!/bin/bash
cat /etc/passwd | while IFS=: read n x i g c d r
do
  # my system has uid started at 1000, but has nfsnobody at 65534:
  if [[ "$i" -ge 1000 && "$i" -le 65000 && ! -x "$d" ]]
  then
    cp -av /etc/skel "$d"
    chown -R "$i:$g" "$d"
    # may needed in SELinux system:
    restorecon -R "$d"
    # add your chmod as your need:
    chmod -R o-rw "$d"
  fi
done

score 2 · Answer 7 · answered Dec 12 '13 at 08:28

If you edit /etc/login.defs to contain

CREATE_HOME yes

then home directories will be automatically created for any future users, unless you tell the system not to do so.

Another option is to use PAM for logins, and use the pam_mkhomedir module to automagically create the homedir on the first login.

score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Feb 07 '18 at 19:44

Login with the user john and write from a shell:

xdg-user-dirs-update

That's it! Don't use sudo or su, you don't need root access to create some directories. From a root account, you can use:

sudo -u john xdg-user-dirs-update

That way, you will execute the command as john, that can be useful if you made the mistake with more than one user.

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Sep 09 '09 at 14:35

0

My first step after doing a useradd is to su - <user>.

Creates the home directories, copies skeletons, etc - at least on the CentOS 4 box I do that on most frequently.

answered Sep 09 '09 at 14:35

warren

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score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Jun 18 '15 at 08:43

0

This is exactly what the mkhomedir_helper $USERNAME command does.

answered Jun 18 '15 at 08:43

Amandasaurus

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No value is added by repeating what another answer already explained two years ago. – kasperd Jun 18 '15 at 09:57

score -2 · Answer 11 · answered Sep 09 '09 at 19:19

-2

You could simply edit /etc/passwd. The second to the last field is the user's home directory.

greeblesnort:x:1000:1000:greeblesnort,,,:/home/greeblesnort:/bin/bash

answered Sep 09 '09 at 19:19

Greeblesnort

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They users were already created. The home directories weren't created because he forgot a switch. – David Rickman Sep 09 '09 at 19:27
I didn't mean to change the user's home directory, I meant to create the directory and copy the skeleton files to it with the appropriate permissions _after_ the user has been added. – cd1 Sep 09 '09 at 19:37

score -2 · Answer 12 · answered Apr 06 '15 at 09:23

-2

usermod -d /home/john john

or

usermod --home /home/john john

and read

man usermod

;)

answered Apr 06 '15 at 09:23

user280139

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The question is more complex than just that - and already has better answers. – Esa Jokinen Apr 06 '15 at 10:39

create home directories after create users

12 Answers12