Open System Services Shell and Utilities Reference Manual (G06.29+, H06.08+, J06.03+)
Administrator Commands and Files newusers(8)
• The newusers command is intended to be used in a large system environment where
many accounts are updated at the same time. When any operation on any of the entries
fails, a corresponding warning message is displayed on STDERR and the command
processes the next entry.
CAVEATS
• The input file must be protected because it contains unencrypted passwords.
• The passwords must respect the system password policy.
CONFIGURATION
The following configuration variables in /etc/login.defs change the behavior of this tool:
GROUP
When a partial name is specified as LOGIN, the group name and corresponding group
number will be taken from the GROUP variable in the /etc/default/users file. The
GROUP variable is specified in the format GROUP=groupName,groupNumber. For
example, GROUP=TEST,99.
USER When a LOGIN name is not specified with the -A option, the LOGIN name is taken from
the USER variable in the /etc/default/users file. The USER variable is specified in the
format USER=group- Name.memberName. For example, USER=TEST.USER1.
CREATE_HOME (boolean)
Indicates if a home directory must be created by default for new users.
Only valid on systems running Safeguard.
PASS_MAX_DAYS (number)
The maximum number of days a password may be used. If the password is older than
this, a password change is forced. The valid value for this is -1 or 1 through 32767. If not
specified, -1 is assumed (which disables the restriction).
Only valid on systems running Safeguard.
UMASK (number)
The file mode creation mask is initialized to this value. If not specified, the mask is ini-
tialized to 022. The useradd and newusers commands use this mask to set the mode of
the home directory when they create files.
Only valid on systems running Safeguard.
FILES
/etc/default/users
Default values for account creation.
/etc/skel/
Directory containing default files.
/etc/login.defs
Default values for login configuration.
EXIT VALUES
The newusers command exits with the following values:
0 success
1 invalid command syntax
2 operation on one or more entries failed
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