Hi,
To add a user to the system on the commandline, I usually use the adduser command.
# adduser newuser
And that's it. I've been using that command probably out of an old habit, since I've been a long-time Slackware user before. But now I wanted to dig a bit deeper, and some details puzzle me.
Whereas on Slackware, 'adduser' is an interactive shell script to create a user so that basically you don't have to memorize all the 'useradd' switches, CentOS' 'adduser' is a mere symbolic link to 'useradd'.
But when I add a new user (# adduser newuser), I don't use any switches, say to specify the shell, the home directory, the password expiration delay, etcetera. I understand that it is Red Hat (CentOS) tradition to create a separate group for each user. For example, user kikinovak also belongs to a group kikinovak. And when I create a new user 'newuser', the 'newuser' group also got somehow created. Plus, the new user also seems to have his own user profile, with a default .bashrc and so on. My only explanation for that is that CentOS' 'useradd' command doesn't work like the traditional UNIX useradd command and uses a few switches by default. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Any light on this?
Niki