Topic: Error: the account "howardbloom" can't be created

[Howard Bloom]

I'm trying to create a user "howardbloom" and I get the error message Error: the account "howardbloom" can't be created because there is already a user-deleted account of that name.

Ok, so maybe I had an account and deleted it.  So what?  Why can't I recreate it or purge whatever info that the 6.0b3 server has?  How do I purge the old info the server is obviously retaining?

[Byte]

just type at command line...

/sbin/e-smith/db accounts delete


Then go to server manager and with any luck you should be able to recreate the user

[roger]

You can also search this forum for similar questions and suggestions on how to find and fix this problem.

[Howard Bloom]

I tried it and it still gives me the same error.

login as: root
Sent username "root"
root@pc-man.com's password:
Last login: Sat Sep  6 01:27:06 2003
Welcome to the Mitel Networks SME Server.
[root@e-smith root]# cd /sbin/e-smith/db
bash: cd: /sbin/e-smith/db: Not a directory
[root@e-smith root]# cd /sbin/e-smith
[root@e-smith e-smith]# db accounts delete
bash: db: command not found
[root@e-smith e-smith]# cd db
bash: cd: db: Not a directory
[root@e-smith e-smith]# ls
buildtests          db                 genfilelist    signal-event
config              do_backup          mergeDB        smoketest
console             dynamic-dns        mysql-preload  update-po
console-menu-items  expand-template    nutUPS.notify  validate-lexicon
create-system-user  generate-lexicons  quicktest      warnquota
[root@e-smith e-smith]# cd db
bash: cd: db: Not a directory
[root@e-smith e-smith]# db
bash: db: command not found
[root@e-smith e-smith]# pws
bash: pws: command not found
[root@e-smith e-smith]# pwd
/sbin/e-smith
[root@e-smith e-smith]# cd db
bash: cd: db: Not a directory
[root@e-smith e-smith]# /sbin/e-smith/db accounts delete
/sbin/e-smith/db dbfile delete key
[root@e-smith e-smith]# /sbin/e-smith/db dbfile delete key
[root@e-smith e-smith]#
[root@e-smith e-smith]# bash: cd: db: Not a directory
bash: bash:: command not found
[root@e-smith e-smith]# [root@e-smith e-smith]# /sbin/e-smith/db accounts delete
bash: [root@e-smith: command not found
[root@e-smith e-smith]# /sbin/e-smith/db dbfile delete key
[root@e-smith e-smith]# [root@e-smith e-smith]# /sbin/e-smith/db dbfile delete key
bash: [root@e-smith: command not found
[root@e-smith e-smith]# [root@e-smith e-smith]#
bash: [root@e-smith: command not found
[root@e-smith e-smith]#

[Howard Bloom]

Okay, I did the "doh" and then entered


[root@e-smith e-smith]# /sbin/e-smith/db dbfile delete howardbloom
[root@e-smith e-smith]#
[root@e-smith e-smith]#

but I'm still getting the error.

[Terry]

Read Byte's answer from the phorum, not in your email.  The email is getting stuff stripped out of it.  Unless something has changed in v6, Byte's command is valid for 5.5 and 5.6.

Terry

[Howard Bloom]

Read my last post.   I did that.

And it took the command without error, but it still won't let me create user "howardbloom"


[root@e-smith e-smith]# /sbin/e-smith/db dbfile delete howardbloom
[root@e-smith e-smith]#
[root@e-smith e-smith]#


Terry wrote:
>
> Read Byte's answer from the phorum, not in your email.  The
> email is getting stuff stripped out of it.  Unless something
> has changed in v6, Byte's command is valid for 5.5 and 5.6.
>
> Terry

[Terry]

And read you command again.... "dbfile", Byte's command is "accounts".  Copy & Paste is a wonderful tool to avoid typo's.

[Howard Bloom]

Terry wrote:
>
> And read you command again

Uh huh.

[Robert]

Couple of pointers:
When you did "/sbin/e-smith/db accounts delete", the command returned the usage summary "/sbin/e-smith/db dbfile delete key" because you were not providing all the required arguments to the command. The usage summary says that you need to specify a particular database file and a particular key for the delete operation. There are several database files in the system; the one you want here is the "accounts" dbfile.
Where it says "bash: [root@e-smith : command not found", it looks like you copied and pasted part of the root prompt in your ssh session. The string of characters before the first space on a command line should be a valid command. "[root@e-smith" obviously isn't.
You changed directory to /sbin/e-smith and then tried to run the "db" command form that directory. This failed because /sbin/e-smith/ is not in your PATH. You could have done "./db", which means "the command db in the current directory" or specify the full path to the command as you ended up doing (/sbin/e-smith/db).
Hope this helps.

[Robert]

In other words, the correct command line is:
/sbin/e-smith/db accounts delete howardbloom
If you prefer to cd to /sbin/e-smith first (wouldn't know why), you can do:
cd /sbin/e-smith
./db accounts delete howardbloom

[Howard Bloom]

Robert wrote:
>
> In other words, the correct command line is:
> /sbin/e-smith/db accounts delete howardbloom
> If you prefer to cd to /sbin/e-smith first (wouldn't know
> why), you can do:
> cd /sbin/e-smith
> ./db accounts delete howardbloom

This is exactly what I did and it returned a:
#

which I take to mean the command executed properly.  I still can't create the user but now I'm getting a different error message when I try to create user "howardbloom":


Operation status report
Error: the account "howardbloom" can't be created because there is already a system account of that name.

[Robert]

Have you looked at the other threads that deal with this issue? I haven't, because I've never actually had this problem. All I was saying was if you want to delete the howardbloom key from the accounts dbfile this is how to do it. But that's not all you need to do to delete the account and I'm not even sure if it was the correct first step to take.

[Howard Bloom]

userdel howardbloom worked like a charm.

[excalibur]

Note

In doing a delete of a user account you will get an error recreating them if you have not made sure to delete all group associations of that account in

'/Home/e-smith/accounts'

Regards

Morten