Unable to login to user accounts after creation with script

[alextrottier2014]

I'm taking a Linux system administration course at school, and one of our regular tasks is creating multiple users. I decided I was tired of entering the command time after time, so I created a script that prompts me for username+password, than adds it to the useradd command.

However, I'm unable to login to the user through terminal, or through the GUI login screen. Not sure what I'm doing wrong.


while [ $a -ne $b ]; do
echo -e '\'n
echo "What is the username:"
read username
echo "What is the password:"
read password
echo -e '\'n
if [ $fullyes = Y ]; then
echo "What do you want the home location to be:"
read homedir
echo "What do you want the comment to be:"
read comment
sudo useradd $username -p $password --home $homedir -c $comment
let a=a+1
elif [ $fullyes = N ]; then
sudo useradd $username -p $password
let a=a+1
fi
done

[steeldriver]

I don't think it will work if you pass the plaintext password - from man useradd:



-p, --password PASSWORD
The encrypted password, as returned by crypt(3). The default is to disable the password.

Note: This option is not recommended because the password (or encrypted password) will be visible
by users listing the processes.

You should make sure the password respects the system's password policy.


In any case, you are largely re-inventing the wheel here since there is already an 'adduser' script that does most of what you want (and is probably configurable to do the rest via its configuration file /etc/adduser.conf)



ADDUSER(8) ADDUSER(8)

NAME
adduser, addgroup - add a user or group to the system

SYNOPSIS
adduser [options] [--home DIR] [--shell SHELL] [--no-create-home] [--uid ID] [--firstuid ID] [--las‐
tuid ID] [--ingroup GROUP | --gid ID] [--disabled-password] [--disabled-login] [--gecos GECOS]
[--add_extra_groups] [--encrypt-home] user
.
.
.
COMMON OPTIONS
[--quiet] [--debug] [--force-badname] [--help|-h] [--version] [--conf FILE]

DESCRIPTION
adduser and addgroup add users and groups to the system according to command line options and configu‐
ration information in /etc/adduser.conf. They are friendlier front ends to the low level tools like
useradd, groupadd and usermod programs, by default choosing Debian policy conformant UID and GID val‐
ues, creating a home directory with skeletal configuration, running a custom script, and other fea‐
tures. adduser and addgroup can be run in one of five modes:

[alextrottier2014]

Ah alright, do you have any suggestion on how to add a password then?

I understand that there's already a script to this, however I'm in the process of teaching my self how to properly script in bash, so I figured this would be a good way to do it, instead of using something that's already been built.

The one thing I don't get though is every time I try logging in, it fails, and when I try logging in through terminal I get


su: Authentication Failure


Edit: The reason why I wasn't able to login through command line is that I had to sudo the the login command