Ubuntu – Groupadd fails with “cannot lock /etc/group; try again later”

groups

I am connected to an Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS server via SSH; when I try to add a group, I get the following message:

groupadd: cannot lock /etc/group; try again later.

In researching this problem, I found some suggestions to look for and remove a .pwd.lock file in the same directory. I found such a file, created over a year ago; I removed it but this did not change the behavior of groupadd.

I've read Cannot lock '/etc/group' in recovery mode but I am not booted into recovery mode and all partitions are mounted read-write. I am not logged in as the root user.

Best Answer

The error message is technically correct but the "try again later" message is misleading. The real issue here is hidden in an error message from adduser:

nonroot@host:/$ adduser existinguser newgroup
adduser: Only root may add a user or group to the system.

To add a new group when logged in as a non-root user, you must use sudo:

nonroot@host:/$ sudo groupadd newgroup
[sudo] password for host:
nonroot@host:/$ grep 'newgroup' /etc/group
newgroup:x:1013:
nonroot@host:/$
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