usermod not updating /etc/passwd

[Aravind_3]

I am executing the following commands:

#/usr/bin/usermod -d /data/userA -l userA userB
#/usr/sam/lbin/usermod.sam -S /etc/passwd -p 2cDrpz8Xelew6 userA

The First command says
Login userA is not unique.

Second Command says
Login userA does not exist.

/etc/passwd has no entries for userA.
Why it is saying userA is not unique ?

Thanks
Aravind

[Allan Pincus]

I'm pretty sure usermod requires that userA already exists. If there is no entry in /etc/passwd for userA, then you are likely getting the error because of that.

The error message is fairly cryptic.

Hope this helps.

[harry d brown jr]

The first message is because

userA is already defined in /etc/passwd

Is this a trusted machine??

And you MUST be running 10.20, because in the new world order (11i) usermod.sam GOES AWAY (well, is really a symbolic link to /usr/sbin/usermod!)

live free or die
harry