Ubuntu – Adding an existing user to another group

user-management

I am having this strange problem. I am using usermod to add an existing user to another group. I want to create a new user and add an old user to this new user's group. To do this, I am doing the following things

Create a new user, -m creates the home directory for the user and -U creates a group by the same name, as that of the user.

useradd -U -m newuser

Then I add the old user to the new user's group as

usermod -a -G newuser olduser

-a appends this group to the already existing groups and -G is used to give the group name.

Now when I do groups olduser I get the following out put olduser newuser, but being the olduser I am unable to create a any file in the newuser home directory. I have set the proper directory permissions, the read, write and execute bit is set for group.

However if, instead of using usermod I manually edit the /etc/group file, and add newuser,olduser in front of the newuser group then everything works correctly. Is there a bug in usermod or I am doing something wrong.

Best Answer

Have you tried doing this with adduser instead? The Ubuntu Help page recommends not using useradd. I think what your trying to do could be done like this:

adduser newuser (automatically makes home folder)

adduser newuser olduser (this adds newuser to the olduser group)

Hope that helps.

EDIT:

This should at least help you figure out if the problem is related to usermod or not. Try to add the user and change groups without using useradd or usermod.

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