Adduser command not working in Linux

Question

When I type adduser -m *username*, I recieve this from the terminal:

bash: adduser: command not found

(in spanish orden no encontrada)

I tried installing adduser but it was already installed.

Answer 1

Thats because its not native to all linux distros, useradd is the native command. adduser is a user-friendly version that implements Perl:

Useradd is built-in Linux command that can be found on any Linux system. However, creating new users with this low-level is a tedious task.

Adduser is not a standard Linux command. It’s essentially a Perl script that uses the useradd command in the background. This high-level utility is more efficient in properly creating new users on Linux. Default parameters for all new users can also be set through the adduser command.

Retrieved: https://linuxhandbook.com/useradd-vs-adduser/

If you are on a Debian based distro (Ubuntu, etc) you can install it with the folowing:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install adduser

If that doesn't work, check if useradd is installed correctly.

Otherwise, if you are not on a Debian-based system (Redhat, etc) you probably just want to stick with useradd... I don't think they support adduser.

If you are on a Debian system and the installation doesn't work you might have an issue with your path variables. You can learn more about this here https://youtu.be/Jp0WWDSJ3Ac

Answer 2

If "useradd" is not working, check your PATH variable. Check for presence of useradd under /usr/sbin/useradd. It should be present by default.

$ echo PATH
/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games

Assign "/usr/sbin" to the path.

$ $PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games
$ export PATH

now "useradd" should work.

$ useradd -help|more
Usage: useradd [options] LOGIN
       useradd -D
       useradd -D [options]

Answer 3

Another take on this:

I was working with a container image (azul/zulu-openjdk if anyone is interested), where it looked like /usr/sbin/useradd really did not exist. adduser, however, was present and worked to create the user. Beware though, as it does have slightly different options to the useradd command.

e.g.

adduser -u <numeric uid> -G <primary group> -D <username>

-D tells adduser not to prompt for password creation after the user is created.