How to add a user to Ubuntu 12.04

12.04 adduser

12,577

You can add an new user (with the common options, and /home/[user] as home directory) with:

useradd -m -g users -s /bin/bash [user]

and then to set a password:

passwd [user]

EDIT: You can also add additional information about the user with:

chfn [user]

12,577

Updated on September 18, 2022

Sina over 1 year

This is very weird, when add a user using the command line then set a password I cant login using the GUI! is this a new thing or what?
- Rinzwind almost 11 years
  
  Depends on the command used... 1 thing that is important: did you specify a /home?
- Sina almost 11 years
  
  No I didn't, I just used useradd with no options
Sina almost 11 years

does this mean that useradd <new user> does not work unless I use the -m -g switches?
Sina almost 11 years

This is exactly what I did, it didn't work
João André almost 11 years

-m creates you home folder in /home/[user], and -g adds you to the groups users, which I am not sure if is set by default. If you just used useradd [user], then probably you would run into problems, as the GUI requires both.
ispasov almost 11 years

Then try to change the password. Use comand: sudo passwd username