Idiot that needs some help

[edwardsen35]

I downloaded and installed "Red Hat 9.0 " During the instalation I don't know if I missed the section where you are suspose to add other users or Red Hat didn't include it. Anyways when I first started Red Hat 9.0 I logged on as root. I then did a "adduser -p test scott". I exit out of the root account and try to log as scott. When try to log on it says that I have the incorrect password. Did I type the adduser command in wrong? Should I be using another command?

[Void Main]

I always do an "adduser username" to create the user and then a "password username" to set the password. But it looks like it should have worked the way you did it. Log in as root and type "passwd scott" to reset the password.

[edwardsen35]

I Logged in as root, typed "passwd scott" and I was able to set the password. I don't know why "adduser -p test scott" didn't work but it isn't a big deal since "passwd scott" worked.

Thanks for the help!

-edwardsen35

[Calum]

i was under the impression that you always need to run 'passwd username' after you create a new user. useradd might have a bit for you to put in the password, not sure. either adduser or useradd does, but the other one doesn't. and that depends on which version of which distro you have too, but i think it's useradd in red hat.

[Linux Frank]

I know Redhat can get really finicky about the passwords you use and it will reject anything it deems too simple, I don't know if it will error message this and ignore the password in the useradd command. I know that in password you get warnings that it is too simple. Does useradd automatically reject simple passwords perhaps?

[Void Main]

I know Redhat can get really finicky about the passwords you use and it will reject anything it deems too simple, I don't know if it will error message this and ignore the password in the useradd command. I know that in password you get warnings that it is too simple. Does useradd automatically reject simple passwords perhaps?

A normal user can not bypass the password rules, but root can bypass it, even for setting normal user passwords. For instance, if as root you set a user's password to "123" it will complain that the password is too short, but if you type in "123" again it will accept it and the user's password will be 123. Now, there are reasons for not having a password such as "123" but you can certainly set it that way if you are root.

[Calum]

that makes a lot of sense. this way whenever users forget their password, root can just reset the user's password to something simple and easy (but insecure) temporarily, like "pass" or something, until the user logs in and changes it. (pass fails as a good password due to being too short and being a dictionary word i think)