Re: Linux::usermod - user name ... already exists

An alternative solution would be to change the username through the usermod and also after the /home dir if exists?

Sample of code:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dumper;

my $nname = "monk";
my $name = "testuser";

sub rename_account {
    my ( $name , $nname ) = ( @_ );
    my $username = `usermod -l $nname $name`;
    my $dirusername = `usermod -d /home/$nname -m $nname`;
    chomp(my @dir = `ls -la /home`);
    print Dumper \@dir;
}


# rename_account("monk", "testuser");
rename_account("testuser", "monk");


__END__

$ sudo perl sample.pl

$VAR1 = [
          'total 16',
          'drwxr-xr-x  4 root   root     4096 Mar 19 12:57 .',
          'drwxr-xr-x 24 root   root     4096 Mar  7 15:04 ..',
          'drwxr-xr-x  2 monk   testuser 4096 Mar 19 12:51 monk',
        ];
[download]

The script will not produce any error if the user exists etc.

Hope this helps, BR.

Seeking for Perl wisdom...on the process of learning...not there...yet!

Comment on Re: Linux::usermod - user name ... already exists Select or Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: Linux::usermod - user name ... already exists by haukex (Archbishop) on Mar 21, 2019 at 13:44 UTC
my $username = `usermod -l $nname $name`; my $dirusername = `usermod -d /home/$nname -m $nname`; [download] I would recommend against this way of doing this because it allows for injection of arbitrary shell commands via `$nname` and `$name`, and it does not check for errors in the commands. See also.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^3: Linux::usermod - user name ... already exists by thanos1983 (Parson) on Mar 21, 2019 at 18:58 UTC
Hello haukex, I read your post so I guess something like that should be better :). Read more... (2 kB) Update: Adding minor conversion STDOUT to array for better data manipulation. Read more... (2 kB) Thank you for the information. BR / Thanos Seeking for Perl wisdom...on the process of learning...not there...yet!	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^4: Linux::usermod - user name ... already exists by haukex (Archbishop) on Mar 25, 2019 at 09:42 UTC
Yes, that does look better to me, thanks!	[reply]
Re^2: Linux::usermod - user name ... already exists by mldvx4 (Friar) on Mar 19, 2019 at 13:43 UTC
Yes, a shell script would be an option. It looks like the problem may be Linux::usermod not taking care of /etc/shadow properly. I'm doing some experiments to see if I can scope out the bug. It's part of a larger, more complex task where the script can change the name of the account and then update all the groups in which it is a member.	[reply]
Re^3: Linux::usermod - user name ... already exists by thanos1983 (Parson) on Mar 19, 2019 at 21:14 UTC
Hello again mldvx4, I was thinking exactly like this. That your script will do something like that. Well an alternative solution would be to remove the user `Linux::usermod->del(username);` (I assume the module removes the user from all groups) and after that create a new user `Linux::usermod->add(username, password, uid, gid, comment, home, shell);` with the updated name. That could be a workaround (assuming there are no errors on this one as well). Not to forget you can assign the user to the desired groups `@users = qw(user1 user2 user3); Linux::usermod->grpadd(groupname, gid, "@users")` [download] . But again this is just theory I have not tested it so I do not know if there is a bug in all these commands. Let us know at the end what solution you came up with. BR / Thanos Seeking for Perl wisdom...on the process of learning...not there...yet!	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^4: Linux::usermod - user name ... already exists by mldvx4 (Friar) on Mar 20, 2019 at 06:17 UTC
Thanks. I gave `Linux::usermod->del(username);` a try and see that it leaves the groups in /etc/group and /etc/shadow untouched instead of removing / modifying them as needed. I took a look at the source for Linux::usermod and it's over my skill level to dig in and form a patch, at least in a timely manner. I'll look into several options now but it may take some time.	[reply]
Re^4: Linux::usermod - user name ... already exists by mldvx4 (Friar) on Mar 20, 2019 at 14:20 UTC
It looks like this is the distilled version of what I will try. The validation of the two variables takes place earlier in another function. `$ENV{'PATH'}=q(/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin); my ($um,$gm); qx/usermod --login $newname --home $newname $oldname/; $um = $?; if ($um==0) { qx/groupmod --new-name $newname $oldname/; $gm = $?; }` [download] Ideas or corrections? No output is produced, so I don't try to capture any. And the home directory gets reassigned and renamed elsewhere, too, since I have a little non-standard home directory arrangement for those groups.	[reply] [d/l]
Re^5: Linux::usermod - user name ... already exists by haukex (Archbishop) on Mar 21, 2019 at 13:42 UTC
Re^6: Linux::usermod - user name ... already exists by mldvx4 (Friar) on Mar 22, 2019 at 11:59 UTC
Some notes below your chosen depth have not been shown here
Re^5: Linux::usermod - user name ... already exists by choroba (Cardinal) on Mar 20, 2019 at 15:06 UTC


Syntactic Confectionery Delight
	PerlMonks