Home directory not being created

Question

I am trying to understand system administration on Ubuntu. So, as an example, I create a dummy user using

sudo useradd -d /home/linda linda

and passwd to create the password. I check that an entry has been made using cat /etc/passwd

linda:x:1004:1004::/home/linda:/bin/sh

However, when I su - linda, I get

No directory, logging in with HOME=/

and indeed, no home directory has been created. What am I missing?

Thanks.

Solution 1

man useradd states:

useradd is a low level utility for adding users. On Debian,
administrators should usually use adduser(8) instead.

Note the low level utility

To add a user, use adduser instead. It's a more high-level utility.

---

Moreover, looking at the -d option:

   -d, --home HOME_DIR
       The new user will be created using HOME_DIR as the value for the
       user's login directory. The default is to append the LOGIN name to
       BASE_DIR and use that as the login directory name. The directory
       HOME_DIR does not have to exist but will not be created if it is
       missing.

The directory will not be created if it is missing.

Generally, keep away from useradd, use adduser instead.

Solution 2

you can fix this simply by creating the home dir.

mkdir /home/linda
chown linda:linda /home/linda

try logging in again and this should work.

Solution 3

According with man useradd, -d /home/linda option will not create the directory /home/linda, if this is missing. So, you have to create it manually. To do this, run the followings commands in terminal:

sudo -i                            #to get root privileges
mkdir /home/linda                  #to create the directory /home/linda
cp -rT /etc/skel /home/linda         #to populate /home/linda with default files and folders
chown -R linda:linda /home/linda   #to change the owner of /home/linda to user linda

See also: How to make user home folder after account creation?

Solution 4

Look at /etc/defaults/useradd if you want to change the defaults. Use:

useradd -m -d /home/joe -s /bin/bash.

Solution 5

Use -m instead of -d, so the directory will be created for you:

sudo useradd -m linda

Also, if linda is a normal user, you might want her to use /bin/bash as default shell:

sudo useradd -m linda -s /bin/bash

View more solutions

Comments

[Keith Bennett]

In the OP's defense, when I read "On Debian,", I thought it meant on Debian as opposed to Ubuntu distros. I am aware that Ubuntu is built on Debian but thought that a distinction was being made.

[mcExchange]

I used adduser but still the created home directory only contains a file examples.desktop and nothing else. How can I get Ubuntu to create the default folders Desktop, Downloads and so on? (I'm logged in via ssh)

[Admin]

It worked for me. I needed to have a basic script that will remotely add/manage users on different flavors of Linux. After this change my code produces same results on all servers. Thanks.

[astrojuanlu]

"According with man useradd, -d /home/linda option will not create the directory /home/linda" so no, this is not a solution.

[derHugo]

Hi, sorry late response and only guessing but I think those folders are created automatically on the first GUI login. Just thought people might still land here ;)

[Noumenon]

adduser will not create the directory either if someone has changed CREATE_HOME in /etc/login.defs to "no". You can override this with the -m flag.

[Myles]

According to the useradd man page, that's what the -m flag is for:-m, --create-home Create the user's home directory if it does not exist. The files and directories contained in the skeleton directory (which can be defined with the -k option) will be copied to the home directory. useradd will create the home directory unless CREATE_HOME in /etc/login.defs is set to no.@astrojuanlu

[Mike Q]

This is the correct answer.

[Justin G]

Life saver, only solution that worked for me. Was using os.system in python to call useradd btw, so it's likely related to that.

[ali Falahati]

that was great thank you it solved my problem also

[Trevor Boyd Smith]

note for rhel users: i think this question/solution also applies. on centos7 you have to yum install shadow-utils to get adduser and then you can use adduser.