View original (French)

Useradd and adduser

Solved
Michel33_7 Posted messages 2 Status Member -  
mamiemando Posted messages 33228 Registration date   Status Moderator Last intervention   -

Hello everyone,

I installed Debian 10.12.0 on my machine, but the adduser and useradd commands are not found.

Thank you in advance!

2 answers

  1.
    mamiemando Posted messages 33228 Registration date   Status Moderator Last intervention   7 944
     

    Hello,

    I installed Debian 10.12.0 on my machine, but the adduser and useradd commands are not found.

    Short answer

    It's probably because you are not root.

    Detailed answer

    apt-file

    When it seems like you are missing a command, you can search for which package provides it with apt-file, and then check if it is installed with dpkg -l.

    Installing apt-file:

    apt update apt install apt-file sudo apt-file update

    Examples:

    apt-file search useradd | grep bin/useradd
     passwd: /usr/sbin/useradd
    apt-file search adduser | grep bin/adduser
     adduser: /usr/sbin/adduser

    Interpretation:

    So, you need to have the passwd and adduser packages installed (and if necessary, install them with apt install). In reality, these two packages are already installed, as the command will show you:

    dpkg -l | egrep "passwd|adduser"

    The PATH environment variable

    The next step is to ensure that the directories containing them (specifically /usr/sbin) are in your PATH; otherwise, you need to type the absolute path of the command (e.g., /usr/bin/adduser) to be able to execute it. To see the current value of PATH, just run:

    Example:

    echo $PATH
     /usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games

    Here, we see that /usr/sbin is not in the PATH. This is normal, since we are not root (and the FHS states that /sbin and /usr/sbin contain executables for administering the machine). We could very well run /usr/bin/adduser toto but it will fail, because like any command that affects the way the system is administered, it requires root privileges.

    Running a command as root

    To become root, run:

    su -

    You can verify that /usr/sbin is now in your PATH:

    echo $PATH
     /usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin

    ... and thus you will be able to run:

    adduser toto

    PATH and sudo

    sudo is a command that allows you to run an administrator command from a user profile. It is installed by default on Ubuntu and can be installed on Debian.

    If sudo is installed and you are using it with a user authorized to do so (typically, belonging to the sudo user group), the PATH is implicitly corrected so that it matches root's PATH. You can therefore call the adduser command without having to specify its absolute path.

    sudo adduser toto

    Good luck

    2
  2. filou
     

    Hello

    Check out this tutorial to fix a problem.

    They're a bit stingy, they probably didn't use adduser. You have to type useradd manually on the keyboard.

    https://debian-facile.org/doc:systeme:useradd

    0