You run `useradd dana` on a Debian system and the account appears in /etc/passwd, but /home/dana does not exist and dana's first login lands in a directory that is not there. Which option to useradd would have created the directory?
LPIC-1 Exam 102-500, objective 107. Administrative tasks medium
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How these questions are written — where each question comes from, what the verification ledger records, and what happens when one is found wrong.
The options
Correct -m
Correct. -m (--create-home) creates the home directory named in the passwd entry and populates it from the skeleton directory. Without it, whether a home directory is made depends on the CREATE_HOME setting in /etc/login.defs, which Debian leaves off.
Not correct -M
Wrong, and the inverse. Uppercase -M explicitly suppresses creation of the home directory even where the system default would have created one.
Not correct -d /home/dana
Wrong on its own. -d sets the path recorded in the sixth field of /etc/passwd. It states where the home directory is, it does not make it exist; it is normally combined with -m.
Not correct -k /etc/skel
Wrong on its own. -k names an alternative skeleton directory to copy from, and useradd only honours it when -m is also given, because there is otherwise no directory to copy into.
Why
useradd is the low-level tool and does only what it is told: the home directory exists only if -m is passed or CREATE_HOME yes is set in /etc/login.defs. Debian's higher-level adduser wrapper is what normally supplies the missing pieces, which is why the two commands behave differently on the same machine. To repair an existing account, create the directory, copy /etc/skel into it and set ownership with chown, since usermod -d without -m will not move or create anything.
Where this comes from
- Cited
- manual page useradd(8)
Practise this
Reading one question is not practice. The trainer will draw a short set from objective 107 and space the ones you get wrong.
More questions on this objective
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