Backtalk Administration Guide:

Creating User Accounts

Version 1.0.9

© 1996-1999 Jan Wolter, Steve Weiss

If your Backtalk system is set up so that users use use real Unix login ids to log into Backtalk, then you won't be able to create accounts with Backtalk. You should use the Unix command instead.

However, if you system is set up to only use Backtalk accounts, then accounts can be created either with the web-based "makeacct" program, or the Unix "btmkuser" command. Just follow the following steps. (The checkboxes below perform no function - they are just for your convenience.)

Creating Accounts by using the makeacct Web Interface

The makeacct web interface can be installed in any of three ways: Whichever set-up you have, as a conference administrator, you can run the program and, if necessary, validate the account. The program is easy to use (since it is meant to be usable by random users off the web), so you really don't need instructions.

Creating Accounts by using btmkuser command from Unix

The btmkuser command can only be used from the conference adminstrator account, not by random other people. It creates minimal accounts, with only the login name, password and fullname set, not with all the other stuff like gender and email addresses. It's meant mainly as an aid to people who have to create accounts in large batches and want to write shell scripts to do so. Maybe we'll add more features if there is a demand.
  1. Log into the Unix conference administration account

    This is the account that owns all the conference files, user database files, and Backtalk itself.


  2. Run the btmkuser command

    You can create an account interactively by just running:

        btmkuser
    
    It will ask you for the account name, the user's full name, and the initial password (twice).

    You can also specify some or all of this information on the command line:

        btmkuser -l eve -n "Eve, Daughter of God" -p "OmiGosh!"
    
    The -l, -n and -p options allow you to specify the login, fullname and password on the command line. If you omit any of these, you will be asked for them. Not that full names and passwords are generally likely to contain spaces and weird characters, and should generally be quoted.

    Warning: Specifying the password on the command line is potentially a bad idea. If there are other users on your system who can do a "ps" command, they will be able to see the commands you are running, with their arguments. Thus they can see the login name and password of the account you are creating. If you have untrustworthy users on your system, we recommend not using the "-p" option.