adding a user in the livecd

Forum: User Feedback
Topic: adding a user in the livecd
started by: softgun

Posted by softgun on Feb. 05 2005,11:06

I am trying to create a new dsl using the deb2dsl script, which requires a new user to be made. i cannot add a user to the live CD (0.9.1) with "cannot rewrite password file" message being received.
It is possible to add users in the Knoppix livecd.
Any way out of this?

Posted by tronik on Feb. 05 2005,15:50

It is definitely possible to add a new user to DSL...Try 'vipw' (know how to use vi, or set EDITOR=nano or something else first)

Try upgrading to DSL 0.9.3, and next time tell us 'how' you are trying to add the user =) via a script/command/vipw?

If its a linking problem, unlink the file...

Posted by softgun on Feb. 05 2005,16:15

Quote (tronik @ Feb. 05 2005,10:50)

I did a search and found these pointers

See these threads for help:
< http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin....%shadow >

< http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin....%shadow >

< http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin....%shadow >

But they do not say how I can add a new user to the liveCD and backup and save to the CD so that after that when i reboot the CD this new user is available.

The thing is apart from ftp and ssh, some apps need a special user - namely postgresql cannot be used without postgres user!

I am trying to make a postgresql dsl. When I apt-get the install fails as there is no user "postgres"

I tried adduser or useradd command. This problem is due to the password file not being writeable. It is a known bug which was not there in 0.8.0 - according to Roberts - but has come into the subsequent versions and hung on :-(

Posted by roberts on Feb. 05 2005,17:49

Adding users to liveCD, is right on the menu, from the main menu: System->AddUsers
This was setup for temporary users for ftp or ssh access.

If you want to "keep" these users then take a look at the script /etc/init.d/ssh_addusers to see the files involved.

Posted by henk.1955 on Feb. 05 2005,19:51

i read the /etc/init.d/dsl-config script. this executed at startup. part of it is:

Code Sample

if checkbootparam "users"; then
/etc/init.d/ssh_addusers
fi

so users is a cheatcode you can add to you bootoptions to make the passwd, and group file writeable

Posted by roberts on Feb. 05 2005,20:02

Adding users from the menu does not require the boot time option.

However to make the added users persist then that is when the boot time option comes into play, as well as adding the files involved to the backup.

Posted by softgun on Feb. 06 2005,11:48

Thanks for the information. However even though i can add the user postgres from the menu, and a home directory is created, I cannot su to posgres - I get an invalid id message.
I am using 0.9.1 version of dsl.