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I am writing a bash script and would like to ssh into a remote machine and execute the adduser command. This is not working, all that I get is the --help text for adduser when I run the code below.

ssh [email protected] 'useradd $username; mkdir /home/$username;' || echo "Unable to create user on pizza.cs.fredonia.edu";;

Ubuntu 14.01

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Are you using a literal $username? If so, where are you getting that from? Are you expecting the shell to expand it? When I run useradd $username in a local shell I get the help text. –  Seth Sep 17 '14 at 3:25
    
Is the user [email protected] able to run useradd? You typically have to be root or sudo useradd assuming that the user backup has sudo rights. –  slm♦ Sep 17 '14 at 5:06
    
That is what I now need to add, he does not have the rights to adduser –  mrplow911 Sep 17 '14 at 16:10

1 Answer 1

up vote 3 down vote accepted

Have you tried using the double quote? Inside single quotes, BASH will not expand the variable $username.

For example, if $username=bob, then this command will expand the variable:

ssh user@hostname "useradd $username; mkdir /home/$username;"

the quoted portion will expand to:

useradd bob; mkdir /home/bob;

But if you use single quotes, like this:

ssh user@hostname 'useradd $username; mkdir /home/$username;'

Then the quoted portion remains unchanged. It will be interpreted as:

useradd $username; mkdir /home/$username;

BTW, the ; at the end, after $username, isn't necessary.

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