HowTo Create an Unprivileged (non root) User in BackTrack

[Threat]

Hey guys this is my first post and I am brand new to Backtrack and Linux really. I ran into a problem following your instructions though. Wondering if you can help me out.

So when I try to adduser it stops and says,
Cannot deal with /etc/skel/ ./root/.kde/share/apps/nepomuk/socket. It is not a dir, file or symlink.

Any ideas?


I should also add that when I try to input this command;
root@bt:~# cp -R /root/{.wine,.maltego,.conky_scripts,.liferea_1.4,.gem} /etc/skel/
Backtrack says, cannot stat /root/.maltego No such file or directory

[lupin]

Hey guys this is my first post and I am brand new to Backtrack and Linux really. I ran into a problem following your instructions though. Wondering if you can help me out.

Are you trying this with BT 4 R1? The instructions might not work verbatim for this since I wrote it using BT4 Final.

So when I try to adduser it stops and says,
Cannot deal with /etc/skel/ ./root/.kde/share/apps/nepomuk/socket. It is not a dir, file or symlink.

Any ideas?

Is there a file on your system called "/etc/skel/./root/.kde/share/apps/nepomuk/socket" when you get that error? If a socket file exists under /etc/skel/ when you try and create a new user it will cause problems.

I should also add that when I try to input this command;
root@bt:~# cp -R /root/{.wine,.maltego,.conky_scripts,.liferea_1.4,.gem} /etc/skel/
Backtrack says, cannot stat /root/.maltego No such file or directory

Omit .maltego from the list of things to copy to the /etc/skel/ directory if it does not exist. e.g.

cp -R /root/{.wine,.conky_scripts,.liferea_1.4,.gem} /etc/skel/

If there are any other folders that do not exist, omit them too. You might also need to add some folders to the list to be copied, so that the skel directory ends up with all the appropriate files.

[Threat]

You're right, I was using BT4 R1. I'm going to switch to Final in hopes that it will work. Thanks for that.

(PS My bad on the double post )

[chaohacker]

I wrapped this in a script. usage <scriptname> -u <username>. If there is an error it will quit. I added -p to the mkdirs so that it can be run multiple times if something goes wrong. To get around missing directories in /root/ I mkdir them.

#!/bin/bash

set -e

getopts "u:" flag
user=$OPTARG

cd
cp .config/menus/applications-kmenuedit.menu /etc/skel/.config/menus/
sed -i 's/XDG_DESKTOP_DIR="$HOME\/"/XDG_DESKTOP_DIR="$HOME\/desktop"/'  /etc/skel/.config/user-dirs.dirs
mkdir -p /etc/skel/desktop
sed -i 's/Wallpaper\[\$e\]=\/opt\/kde3\/share\/wallpapers\/origin2.jpg/Wallpaper\[\$e\]=\/opt\/kde3\/share\/wallpapers\/bt4.png/' /etc/skel/.kde3/share/config/kdesktoprc
cp .kde3/share/icons/nuvoX_0.7/kmenu-dragon.zip /etc/skel/.kde3/share/icons/nuvoX_0.7/
unzip -ou .kde3/share/icons/nuvoX_0.7/kmenu-dragon.zip -d /etc/skel/.kde3/share/icons/nuvoX_0.7/
mkdir -p /root/{.wine,.maltego,.conky_scripts,.liferea_1.4,.gem}
cp -R /root/{.wine,.maltego,.conky_scripts,.liferea_1.4,.gem} /etc/skel/

adduser $user
usermod --groups admin,disk,cdrom,audio $user

[Zekemob]

I have version 4 R2 and I went into /etc/skel/ ./root/.kde/share/apps/nepomuk/ and deleted the file "socket". I was able to create a user after that. I don't know what other damage I caused, but it saved me downloading and reconfiguration time.

[Strategiclaunch]

Hi,

first of all, thanks for the tutorial.

I am getting this error when I try to introduce the first command line:

cp: cannot stat `.config/menus/applications-kemnuedit.menu': No such file or directory

[Puertorock]

First I want to say Thank you lupin

I'm Using BT R2

cannot stat /root/.maltego No such file or directory

As far Maltego gone missing I started the application from start menu internet clicked on maltego this created the missing folder .maltego...

I read some people had problems with no such file or directory the above may help you......

When I ran add user I got this

Adding user `puertorock' ...
Adding new group `puertorock' (1000) ...
Adding new user `puertorock' (1000) with group `puertorock' ...
Creating home directory `/home/puertorock' ...
Copying files from `/etc/skel' ...
Stopped: close /home/puertorock/./.kde3/share/icons/nuvoX_0.7/22x22/apps/kconfigure.png
Removing directory `/home/puertorock' ...
Removing user `puertorock' ...
Removing group `puertorock' ...
groupdel: group puertorock does not exist
adduser: `groupdel puertorock' returned error code 6. Exiting.

For some people that are getting an error I must make a user directory "puertorock" It seems that adduser is not able to created...

# mkdir /home/puertorock

Then run

# adduser puertorock

Adding user `puertorock' ...
Adding new group `puertorock' (1000) ...
Adding new user `puertorock' (1000) with group `puertorock' ...
The home directory `/home/puertorock' already exists. Not copying from `/etc/skel'.
adduser: Warning: The home directory `/home/puertorock' does not belong to the user you are currently creating.
Enter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: password updated successfully
Changing the user information for puertorock
Enter the new value, or press ENTER for the default
Full Name []:
Room Number []:
Work Phone []:
Home Phone []:
Other []:
Is the information correct? [Y/n] y

Done

Again Thank you lupin

[k3eper]

Hey Lupin great tut, I seem to be having network connectivity issues using my non root account. I can ping the gateway and if I connect to the routers web interface I can ping Google etc from its own diagnostics tools.

I initially thought it might be something to do with the dns, but after grabbing the ip using the gateways web gui tools, i still cant ping the ip or navigate to it. Any advice that might shed some light?

Really appreciated.

[lupin]

Hey Lupin great tut, I seem to be having network connectivity issues using my non root account. I can ping the gateway and if I connect to the routers web interface I can ping Google etc from its own diagnostics tools.

I initially thought it might be something to do with the dns, but after grabbing the ip using the gateways web gui tools, i still cant ping the ip or navigate to it. Any advice that might shed some light?

Really appreciated.

You probably should start a new thread on this, and provide some more detail on what you mean by "network connectivity issues". Specifically, what can you do and what cant you do?

[k3eper]

You probably should start a new thread on this, and provide some more detail on what you mean by "network connectivity issues". Specifically, what can you do and what cant you do?

As mentioned previously i can’t see anything on the internet. I can see entire LAN, but nothing past the router/gateway (our ISP supplied us with a WIFI router that serves as our ADSL end point and of course firewall).

I’m connected via Ethernet. I can ping my LAN addresses and connect to my routers web based GUI, I can tell from the GUI that its connecting to the outside world (has an IP/DNS and gateway assigned) I can ping Google etc using the GUI's ping tool so it is definitely connected to the outside world but for some reason my machine just doesn’t route through when using my non root account.