[Techtalk] help with python script for batch useradd

[Carla Schroder]

Hiya,

Attached is a nice Python script that takes a comma-delimited text list, like 
this:

carlas,Carla Schroder
nikitah,Nikita Horse
rubst,Rubs The Cat

Then it generates passwords, and adds all the users to the system. This was 
written by Aaron Malone, who used to hang out here.

There's an improvement I've been trying to make:
How to make it enter the GECOS, or full-name field entries correctly? This is 
the format of /etc/passwd:
username:passwd:UID:GID:full name,room number,work phone,home 
phone,other:directory:shell

useradd does everything except username, passwd, and full-name. Each field is 
colon-separated, and the 6 fields inside the GECOS (full-name) field are 
comma-separated. Let's say your user list looks like this:

carlas,Carla Schroder,,,,foo
nikitah,Nikita Horse,,123-4567,equine
rubst,Rubs The Cat,101,,234-5678,,

How to tell Python to pass it in the correct format to useradd? useradd does 
it like this:

# useradd -c "Rubs T Cat,101,,123-4567,feline" rubst

Thanks much!
-- 
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Carla Schroder
www.tuxcomputing.com
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