Create user account and set password with one command

I often see forum posts where a System Administrators, wants to create local user accounts on several servers and doesn't want to have to have to set the user's password over and over again. Below I share two ways to do this. The first way creates the user account and sets the password in one command. The second method sets the password in a additional command. Ether way can be used in a script, which can speed things up if you need to create one or more accout on servel systems.

Below is an example of creating a user account.

root@earth> useradd -u 25 -g staff -G ftp,users -m -d /export/home/newuser -c "newuser" -s /bin/bash newuser
root@earth> passwd newuser
passwd: Changing password for username
New Password:
Re-enter new Password:
passwd: password successfully changed for newuser

This method can be very time consuming process and would be hard to use in script. Below is an example of how using the -p option in the useradd command, to set the user's password by setting the uses hash.

root@earth> useradd -u 25 -g staff -G ftp,users -m -d /export/home/newuser -c "newuser" -s /bin/bash -p '6$jbvkjjg$qFmFH.bQmmtXzyBY0s9v7Oicd2z4XSIecDzlB5KiA2/jctKu9YterLp8wwnSq.qc.eoxqOmSuNp2xS0ktL3nh/' newuser

This method works on Linux computers, such as SLES and RHEL. It however doesn't work on systems such as Solaris.

Alternately you can also set the users by echoing the password to standard in, as shown below. The major issue with doing it this way is that the password is recorded in the system logs and if your running the command remotely then your sending the password in the clear. So I don't recomend doing it this way.

root@earth> echo password | passwd newuser --stdin

This method works only Linux systems.

Other posts with similar info
Linux User Account Creation & Customization
Adding a new user to a UNIX based system

References pages.
Online man page - useradd
Online man page - passwd