Uttered Chris <metrion@xxxxxxxxx>, spake thus: > Is it possible to add users to the system using a first.last name > form? I get an error when attempting it: ' useradd: invalid user name > 'john.doe'. I have to add about 800 names to a mail server and > shortened versions would have duplicates, I have an older RH 8.0 > server that I've been able to add users with this user name form, but > I couldn't see any difference with any config that would allow it. Accepting a dot as part of the username is a new-ish POSIX change and not all parts of Linux are happy with it. AFAIK, useradd(8) has a bug in its name validation. Other utilities, such as chown(1), should be OK. Try this. Make a backup first! 1) Add user as "useradd -c 'John Doe' johndoe" 2) Edit "/etc/passwd" and "/etc/shadow" and change "johndoe" to "john.doe" to bypass useradd's checking. Yeah, this makes my stomach hurt too. HTH.
