Mac OS X Tiger in a Nutshell

Creating a User with niload

The niload utility understands the flat file format used by /etc/passwd (which is name:password:uid:gid:class:change:expire:gecos:home_dir:shell). See the passwd(5) manpage for a description of each field. To add a new user, create a file that adheres to that format and load it with niload. You can use a here document rather than a separate file. This example creates a user for Ernest Rothman with a UID of 701 and membership in the group numbered 701, which you’ll create next:

    $ sudo niload passwd . <<EOF
    > rothman:*:701:701::0:0:Ernest Rothman:/Users/rothman:/bin/bash
    > EOF

Next, create a group with the same name as the new user and a GID that matches his UID (as of Mac OS X 10.3, users are given their own groups):

    $ sudo niload group . <<EOF
    > rothman:*:701:
    > EOF

As you can see from the example, we set the user’s password field to *, which disables logins for that account. To set the password, we’ll use the passwd command:

    $ sudo passwd rothman
    Changing password for rothman.
    New password: ********
    Retype new password: ********

If you niload a user that already exists, that user’s entry will be updated with the new information. Before the user can log in, you must create his home directory (see "Creating a User’s Home Directory,” later in this chapter).