man > ADDUSER.CONF(5)

ADDUSER.CONF(5)                          File Formats Manual                         ADDUSER.CONF(5)

NAME
       /etc/adduser.conf - configuration file for adduser(8) and addgroup(8)

DESCRIPTION
       The  file  /etc/adduser.conf  contains  defaults  for  the  programs adduser(8), addgroup(8),
       deluser(8) and delgroup(8).  Each line holds a single value pair in the form option =  value.
       Double  or  single  quotes  are  allowed around the value, as is whitespace around the equals
       sign.  Comment lines must have a hash sign (#) in the first column.

       The valid configuration options are:

       STDERRMSGLEVEL ,  STDOUTMSGLEVEL , and  LOGMSGLEVEL
              Minimum priority for messages logged to syslog/journal and the console,  respectively.
              Values  are  trace, debug, info, warn, err, and fatal.  Messages with the priority set
              here or higher get printed to the respective medium.  Messages printed to  stderr  are
              not repeated on stdout.  That allows the local admin to control addusers chattiness on
              the  console  and  in the log independently, keeping probably confusing information to
              itself while still leaving helpful information in the log.  Defaults to info for  STD‐
              OUTMSGLEVEL and LOGMSGLEVEL and warn for STDERRMSGLEVEL.

       ADD_EXTRA_GROUPS
              Setting  this  to  something other than 0 will cause adduser to add newly created non-
              system users to the list of groups defined by EXTRA_GROUPS (below).  Defaults to 0.

       DIR_MODE
              The permissions mode for home directories of non-system users that are created by  ad‐
              duser(8).   Defaults  to  0700.  Note that there are potential configurations (such as
              /~user web services, or in-home mail delivery) which will require changes to  the  de‐
              fault.  See also SYS_DIR_MODE.

       DHOME  The directory in which new home directories should be created.  Defaults to /home.

       DSHELL The login shell to be used for all new users.  Defaults to /bin/bash.

       EXTRA_GROUPS
              This is the space-separated list of groups that new non-system users will be added to.
              Defaults to users.

       FIRST_SYSTEM_GID  and  LAST_SYSTEM_GID
              specify  an  inclusive  range of GIDs from which GIDs for system groups can be dynami‐
              cally allocated.  Defaults to 100 - 999.

       FIRST_GID  and  LAST_GID
              specify an inclusive range of GIDs from which GIDs for non-system groups can be dynam‐
              ically allocated.  Defaults to 1000 - 59999.

       FIRST_SYSTEM_UID  and  LAST_SYSTEM_UID
              specify an inclusive range of UIDs from which UIDs for system users can be dynamically
              allocated.  Defaults to 100 - 999.  Please note that  system  software,  such  as  the
              users allocated by the base-passwd package, may assume that UIDs less than 100 are un‐
              allocated.

       FIRST_UID  and  LAST_UID
              specify an inclusive range of UIDs from which UIDs for non-system users can be dynami‐
              cally allocated.  Defaults to 1000 - 59999.

       GID_POOL
              See UID_POOL.

       GROUPHOMES
              If  this  is set to yes, the home directories will be created as /home/groupname/user.
              Defaults to no. This option is deprecated and will be removed.

       LAST_GID
       LAST_SYSTEM_GID
       LAST_UID
       LAST_SYSTEM_UID
              See the FIRST_ variants of the option.

       LETTERHOMES
              If this is set to yes, then the home directories created will have an extra  directory
              inserted  which is the first letter of the loginname.  For example: /home/u/user.  De‐
              faults to no. This option is deprecated and will be removed.

       NAME_REGEX
              Non-system user- and groupnames are checked against this regular expression.   If  the
              name  doesn't  match this regexp, user and group creation in adduser(8) is refused un‐
              less --allow-bad-names is set.  With --allow-bad-names set,  weaker  checks  are  per‐
              formed.   Defaults  to  the most conservative ^[a-z][-a-z0-9_]*$.  See SYS_NAME_REGXEX
              and Valid names, below, for more information.

       QUOTAUSER
              If set to a nonempty value, new users will have quotas copied  from  that  user  using
              edquota -p QUOTAUSER newuser.  Defaults to the empty string.

       SETGID_HOME
              If  this  is  set  to yes, then home directories for users with their own group (USER‐
              GROUPS = yes) will have the set-group-ID bit set.  Note that this  feature  is  depre‐
              cated  and will be removed in a future version of adduser(8).  Please use DIR_MODE in‐
              stead.  Defaults to no.

       SKEL   The directory from which skeletal user configuration files will be  copied.   Defaults
              to /etc/skel.

       SKEL_IGNORE_REGEX
              When  populating  the newly created home directory of a non-system user, files in SKEL
              matching this regex are not copied.  Defaults to to (.(dpkg|ucf)-(old|new|dist)$), the
              regular expression matching files left over from unmerged config files.

       SYS_DIR_MODE
              The permissions mode for home directories of system users  that  are  created  by  ad‐
              duser(8).   Defaults  to  0755.  Note that changing the default permissions for system
              users may cause some packages to behave unreliably, if the program relies on  the  de‐
              fault setting.  See also DIR_MODE.

       SYS_NAME_REGEX
              System  user- and groupnames are checked against this regular expression.  If the name
              doesn't match this regexp, system user and group creation in adduser is refused unless
              --allow-bad-names is set.  With --allow-bad-names set, weaker  checks  are  performed.
              Defaults  to  the  most  conservative ^[a-z_][-a-z0-9_]*$.  See NAME_REGEX, above, and
              Valid names, below, for more information.

       UID_POOL  and  GID_POOL
              specify a file or a directory containing UID and GID pool  files.   See  UID  and  GID
              POOLS in the NOTES section.  Both default to empty.

       USERGROUPS
              Specify  whether  each  created  non-system user will be given their own group to use.
              Defaults to yes.

       USERS_GID  and  USERS_GROUP
              Defines the groupname or GID of the  group  all  newly-created  non-system  users  are
              placed  into.  If USERGROUPS is yes, the group will be added as a supplementary group;
              if USERGROUPS is no,, it will be the primary group.  If you don't want all your  users
              to  be  in one group, set USERGROUPS=yes, leave USERS_GROUP empty and set USERS_GID to
              "-1".  USERS_GROUP defaults to users, which has GID 100 on all  Debian  systems  since
              it's  defined  statically  by the base-passwd package.  It is a configuration error to
              define both variables even if the values are consistent.

NOTES
   VALID NAMES
       Historically, adduser(8) and addgroup(8) enforced conformity to IEEE Std  1003.1-2001,  which
       allows  only the following characters to appear in group- and usernames: letters, digits, un‐
       derscores, periods, at signs (@) and dashes.  The name may not start with a dash or  @.   The
       "$" sign is allowed at the end of usernames to allow typical Samba machine accounts.

       The  default  settings for NAME_REGEX and SYS_NAME_REGEX allow usernames to contain lowercase
       letters and numbers, plus dash (-) and underscore (_); the name must begin with a letter  (or
       an underscore for system users).

       The  least  restrictive policy, available by using the --allow-all-names option, simply makes
       the same checks as useradd(8): cannot start with a dash, plus sign, or tilde; and cannot con‐
       tain a colon, comma, slash, or whitespace.

       This option can be used to create confusing or misleading names; use it with caution.

       Please note that regardless of the regular expressions used to evaluate the username, it  may
       be  a  maximum  of  32  bytes;  this may be less than 32 visual characters when using Unicode
       glyphs in the username.

   UID AND GID POOLS
       Some installations desire that a non-system account gets preconfigured properties when it  is
       generated.   Commonly, the local admin wants to make sure that even without using a directory
       service, an account or a group with a certain name has the same numeric UID/GID on  all  sys‐
       tems where it exists.

       To  enable  this  feature, define configuration variables UID_POOL (for user accounts) and/or
       GID_POOL (for groups) in /etc/adduser.conf and install the respective files in the configured
       places.  The value is either a file or a directory.  In  the  latter  case  all  files  named
       *.conf in that directory are considered.

       The file format is similar to /etc/passwd: Text lines, fields separated by a colon.  The val‐
       ues  are username/groupname (mandatory), UID/GID (mandatory), comment field (optional, useful
       for user IDs only), home directory (ditto), shell (ditto).

       It is possible to use the same file/directory for UID_POOL and GID_POOL.

       If an account / group is created, adduser(8) searches in all UID/GID pool files  for  a  line
       matching  the  name  of the newly created account and uses the data found there to initialize
       the new account instead of using the defaults.  Settings may be overridden from  the  command
       line.


FILES
       /etc/adduser.conf

SEE ALSO
       deluser.conf(5), addgroup(8), adduser(8), delgroup(8), deluser(8)

Debian GNU/Linux                                                                     ADDUSER.CONF(5)