Linux User Creation Bash Script

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Automated User and Group Management Script

Introduction

Managing users and groups in a Linux environment can be a tedious task, especially when dealing with a large number of users. To streamline this process, we've created a bash script named create_users.sh that automates user and group creation, assigns users to specified groups, sets up home directories, generates random passwords, and logs all actions.

Github repo Link

Features

• Automated User and Group Creation: Creates users and personal groups.
• Group Assignment: Assigns users to multiple groups as specified.
• Random Password Generation: Generates secure random passwords for each user.
• Logging: Logs all actions to /var/log/user_management.log.
• Secure Password Storage: Stores passwords securely in /var/secure/user_passwords.csv.

Prerequisites

• Ubuntu (or a similar Linux distribution)
• Root or sudo access

Script Breakdown

• Logging: The script logs all actions with timestamps to /var/log/user_management.log using the log_action function.
• User and Group Creation:
  • The script reads the input file line by line.
  • Each line is split into a username and groups.
  • Personal groups (with the same name as the username) are created if they don't already exist.
  • Users are created if they don't already exist and are added to their respective groups.
• Password Generation and Storage:
  • The script generates a random password for each user using openssl rand.
  • Passwords are set for each user and stored securely in /var/secure/user_passwords.csv with appropriate permissions.

Conclusion

This script simplifies the process of managing users and groups on a Linux system, making it efficient and error-free. It is particularly useful for large environments where user and group management is a frequent task.

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