add user: change loginname, keep UID HP-UX 11.00

[Michael Bluemm_1]

Hallo guys,
a female user has married and wants to get a new login-name.
1. How to create a new user with the same UID and
2. remove the old user without losing some files or
3. does a command exist (11.00,) how to change username (without creating and deleting new user).
If possible, without sam.

Thank you,
Michael

(sorry to have put the same question in a wrong forum first)

[Pete Randall · Accepted solution]

Michael,

I think all you need to do is edit the /etc/passwd file (use vipw to be safe), duplicate the existing line, change the name (and possibly the home directory name). Then get rid of the original line and use "chown -R newuser /home/username" (first renaming the /home/username if you chose to rename it in /etc/passwd).


Pete

[RAC_1]

Option 1
Create new user with same uid.
vipw and add user.

Delete the old user and change the ownership of files owned by old user to new user.

Option 2

vipw, rename the user.

Change the file ownership.

Anil

[Jeff_Traigle]

Much quicker than hacking files manually:

usermod -d newhomepath -m -c "newname" -l newlogin login

Automatically does the passwd entry, creates the new home directory, and copies the files from the old to the new home directory. Leaves the old home directory in place with all files, however, so that would need to be removed manually.

[lawrenzo]

I think you can use:

# su - root
# usermod -l [new name] loginname

see man pages usermod - this does not update the home directory name.

[Michael Bluemm_1]

Hello,
thank you for all your answers.

Pete: best answer
RAC: Option 1: ok, but files get new dates
Option 2: ok
Jeff: easy and fast, but files get new date (because of copying)
lawrenzo: good solution; you have to edit passwd and change homedirectory afterwards

Points to you all,
Michael