Bash script says command not found

Question

I try to run the following bash script to create a bunch of users, groups, home dirs for the users and correct permissions for all of these. The OS is CentOS.

When I try to run the following, which I though should work, it returns "command not found" when running via terminal. it only gets as far as creating the /homedirs directory, nothing more. I'm a total noob at bash scripting so forgive me if this looks ugly.

mkdir /homedirs; chmod 775 /homedirs;

for iYear in {1..3} do
    sYear = $iYear"ti"
    sYearDir = "/homerirs/"$sYear
    groupadd $sYear; mkdir $sYearDir; chgrp $sYear $sYearDir; chmod 750 $sYearDir

    for sClass in {a,b} do
        sClassDir = $sYearDir/$sClass
        mkdir $sClassDir
        sClassGrp = $sYear$sClass
        groupadd $sClassGrp; chgrp $sClassGrp $sClassDir; chmod 750 $sClassDir

        for iUser in {1..3} do
            sUserName = "i"$iYear$sClass"g"$iUser
            sUserDir = $sClassDir/$sUserName
            useradd -d $sUserDir -g $sClassGrp -G $sYear -m $sUserName
            chown $sUserName $sUserDir; chmod 750 $sUserDir
        done
    done
done

Doesn't it have to be `for ... in ... ; do`, with semicolons separating flow control statement and `do` block? — raina77ow, Oct 03 '12 at 20:49
@raina77ow that could be. I'm still quite unfamliar with the syntax. In fact I think it should be, too, come to think of it. Edit: that didn't solve the problem... — MarioDS, Oct 03 '12 at 20:51
`for iYear in 1 2 3; do` and `for sClass in a b; do` would not only be shorter, but also more portable. — tripleee, Oct 03 '12 at 20:53
Hmm. Can you do this `cat scriptname.sh | sed 's/\r//'`, when `scriptname.sh` is your script filename? — raina77ow, Oct 03 '12 at 20:59
Or just run `dos2unix` on that script, and try to run it again... See, it's weird having it execute just the first line, and then stop with 'Command not found'. — raina77ow, Oct 03 '12 at 21:01
Your variable names got translated into Dutch (?) somewhere halfway. You must have a very dangerous computer virus (-: — tripleee, Oct 03 '12 at 21:04
@tripleee no, the original variable names were in Dutch. I changed them here to be more readable to answerers. — MarioDS, Oct 03 '12 at 21:07
I don't think you need to `chown` the directory created by `useradd` and it should hopefully already have the right permissions, too. — tripleee, Oct 03 '12 at 21:48

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:45

1

You may need to set your PATH and you really should read the advanced bash scripting guide. See also this answer.

I also suggest to debug your script by starting it with #!/bin/bash -vx as its first line. And you should make it executable with chmod u+x at least.

Perhaps groupadd might not be available on your system.

edited May 23 '17 at 11:45

Community

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answered Oct 03 '12 at 20:48

Basile Starynkevitch

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I've also made it executable... Groupadd is available. – MarioDS Oct 03 '12 at 20:55
Okay, I cannot run it from the terminal as opposed to what I thought before. What more do I need to do beside chmod u+x ? – MarioDS Oct 03 '12 at 21:04

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 03 '12 at 21:02

1

The error message is caused by the spaces around the equals signs. A token with whitespace after it is interpreted as a command name; so what you intended as variable names causes the Command not found errors.

answered Oct 03 '12 at 21:02

tripleee

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Can you also tell me how to login with these users? As you can see, no password was specified but the login screen or terminal ask me for a password. When I leave it blank, there's an authentication failure... – MarioDS Oct 03 '12 at 21:30
You should probably pass in a password with an option to `useradd`. To change the password of an existing user, run `passwd $user` as root. – tripleee Oct 03 '12 at 21:37
... or install a suitable public SSH key and leave them passwordless. – tripleee Oct 03 '12 at 21:44
I don't really get what you mean with that last. The teacher (yes, this is for school) just asked us to script this and he said don't give a password with useradd. We have only had a poor introduction to unix last year... – MarioDS Oct 03 '12 at 22:05
If it's just for demonstration, you can access an account with `su - $user`. Normally a (non-system) account with no way to log in is useless. You have to have either a password or some alternate means of authentication, such as an SSH keypair. Kerberos is also popular in some organizations. – tripleee Oct 04 '12 at 03:25

score -1 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 03 '12 at 21:05

-1

best thing to do is add the full path before your executables:

change useradd to /usr/sbin/useradd

change groupadd to /usr/sbin/groupadd

will cure the command not found.

remember this programs will probably need to run as root to work.

answered Oct 03 '12 at 21:05

DannyK

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-1 No, don't do that. Set up a sane `PATH` once, and never hard-code command path names. – tripleee Oct 03 '12 at 21:09
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Thanks for the run as root hint, didn't know if it was necessary but did it anyway. – MarioDS Oct 03 '12 at 21:16

Bash script says command not found

3 Answers3