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user38484
Asked: 2010-05-06 22:55:38 +0800 CST

Debian: create a new user without home directory

  • 772

How do I create a new user in Debian without home directory?

debian users debian-lenny

5 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Not really sure if you can create a user which doesn't have a home directory specified. That being said, the specified home directory doesn't have to exists. You can call the adduser with the option --no-create-home.

    adduser --no-create-home foo

    (adduser is usually the preferred higher level tool if called interactively.)

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  2. According to the man page of useradd(8) you either want to add the parameter -M to your useradd call or you want to set CREATE_HOME=no in /etc/default/useradd.

    -M
Do no create the user's home directory,
even if the system wide setting from
/etc/login.defs (CREATE_HOME) is set to yes.
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  3. On Debian based systems typically the adduser command is used to create new accounts instead of directly calling useradd.

    The adduser option to skip creating a home directory is --no-create-home.

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  4. $ useradd joe $useradd -m joe does the opposite

    edit : rtfm ;) http://linux.die.net/man/8/useradd

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  5. As root on a Linux machine

    [root@stapp01 ~]# cat /etc/passwd | grep anita
[root@stapp01 ~]# useradd -M anita
[root@stapp01 ~]# id anita
uid=1002(anita) gid=1002(anita) groups=1002(anita)
[root@stapp01 ~]# cat /etc/passwd | grep anita
anita:x:1002:1002::/home/anita:/bin/bash
[root@stapp01 ~]#
[root@stapp01 ~]# ll /home/
total 8
drwx------ 2 ansible ansible 4096 Oct 15  2019 ansible
drwx------ 2 tony    tony    4096 Jan 25  2020 tony
[root@stapp01 ~]#

    Parameter of command useradd:

    -M
The user home directory will not be created, even if the system wide settings from /etc/login.defs is to create home dirs.
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