On Sat, 2008-03-15 at 10:17 -0400, Jim Perrin wrote: > On Sat, Mar 15, 2008 at 10:11 AM, Anne Wilson > <cannewilson at googlemail.com> wrote: > > system-config-users is giving me a problem. I need to create a user > > called 'groupware', without a home directory, and belonging only to a > > non-privileged group. I can create the user, but it sets it to belong to the > > group 'users'. When I try to set its default to 'nobody' and delete > > the 'users' entry it tells me that I must enter a home directory. > > > > How can I get around this? > > Mostly, you don't. Every user has to have a home directory, though > nothing says it has to be in /home > > Take a look at how the system accounts for things like rpm or rpc or > others are handled. I'd also recommend using useradd as it gives you a > bit more flexibility when creating users. with useradd you can use -g > and -G to see the primary and secondary group memberships as you need. > Also, unless this account will be logging in or for some other reason > requires a shell, make sure that the shell for the user is set to > /sbin/nologin. ---- Machine accounts in samba use /dev/null as home directory so I wouldn't think that too difficult either. Craig