Trying to add user to group that exists in /etc/group not working

Question

I'm trying to add a list of users to different groups on a debian VM. I am using the following sequence of commands in my bash script:

getent group $uid || groupadd $uid                        #add group before adding user
useradd -s $shell -m -d $users_directory -g $uid $uname   #add user with group id $uid

However running this prints out the following:

groupadd: group '5067' already exists
useradd: group '5067' does not exist

looking at my groups with cut-d: -f1 /etc/group I see that '5067' exists there, but when I run groups all I see is 'root' as the lone group.

Any tips?

Answer 1

Calling groupadd with a numeric group id is going to create a group named 5067. E.g.:

# groupadd 5067
# grep 5067 /etc/group
5067:x:1000:

When you pass a numeric identifier to useradd -g ..., it looks only at group ids. So even though a group named 5067 exists:

# useradd -g 5067 testuser
useradd: group '5067' does not exist

I suspect this is the root of your problem.

That you don't see the new group when running groups is normal. Any new groups you've added a user to won't take effect until that user logs in. If the user is already logged in, they need to log out and log back in (os start a new login shell). That's why you don't see the new group in the output of groups although you do see it in /etc/group.

Answer 2

re: the groups command showing only root.

If you simply type groups, you get the response for your uid. You need to use groups $uname to see the groups for that user.

Also, be aware that useradd may create a new group for the user with the same name. You can use -N to prevent that. Look in /etc/login.defs and /etc/default/useradd to check on option defaults.