Topic: can not add user to SME server

[oldtony]

when i try to add a user using the browser it appears to work but then i can not enter a password to be accepted. I type the password  in, but the password is never is accepted. the /var/log/messages error i get is below.

Oct 12 08:20:43 thm passwd(pam_unix)[10600]: user "anita" does not exist in /etc/passwd or NIS

this is SME server 7.4
thanks for any help - old tony

[Stefano]

7.4?

[janet]

oldtony

A little self help eg reading the FAQ would have found
https://wiki.contribs.org/SME_Server:Documentation:FAQ:Section01#Deletion_of_Users_Ibays_Groups

Worth trying, & really you should upgrade immediately as sme7.4 is unsupported & insecure.

[oldtony]

thanks for the help. i do get the following error when i try this:
perl -e "use esmith::util;esmith::util::setUserPassword( 'anita', 'password');";  /sbin/e-smith/signal-event  password-modify username

( the user is anita that i can not set the password through the browser)

Error below:
Failed to set Unix password for account anita: Authentication token manipulation error
Failed to modify password entry for user anita
Failed to set Samba password for account anita.
Child exited early. at /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/esmith/util.pm line 728.

[janet]

oldtony

As suggested, at a command prompt on the serer logged in as root or user with root privileges, did you try
signal-event user-delete anita
db accounts delete anita

what happens when you issue the above commands ?

[oldtony]

thanks - that does delete the user.
then i tried adding another user with same problem, i still can not set the password.
is there a signal event way of adding a user?

[guest22]

is there a signal event way of adding a user?

That won't fix the issue IF there is 'old' user account data. You need to follow the "Anita procedure" first.


But you really should update to SME Server 9.x 64-bit. 7.4 won't cut anymore and is to be considered dangerous to use both at home and for business.

[oldtony]

thanks everyone for the help - old tony

[janet]

oldtony

Really no one can help you, as support for sme7.x was stopped long ago, & most users here would probably have forgotten the issues with sme 7.4 & 7.6 etc. I do vaguely recall a problem maybe similar to yours but the memory is sketchy.

Did you run both commands ?
ie
signal-event user-delete anita
db accounts delete anita

Also sme v7.6 was released in May 2012 see
https://wiki.contribs.org/SME_Server:7.6

so you are running a version 7.4 that had later updates released for it.
You possibly/probably have hit a bug that was fixed in a later release eg 7.6

You could try updating but it is a difficult procedure as all the repos were moved to the obsoleted tree & it may be difficult to find them & reconfigure your server repo settings to use those external repos.
Descriptions have been posted in these forums previously, but it is not something to do if you do not understand repos & various issues associated with updating old versions.

It would be better & easier for you to upgrade at least to sme 8.2, so that you have something current you can get support for, & then consider to soon upgrade to sme 9.x.
The upgrade to sme8.x should be easy enough.

[mmccarn]

I remember running into problems with user creation at some point related to ldap -- but I don't know if that was on SME 7.

After enabling LDAP, new users could not be created.