Solaris 11: User Renames Not Simple Anymore

As part of the Solaris 11 Express Installation, you are required to create a named user, which is then the account you can log in as, no root for you.  Anyways the problem here is that we had some machines which we subsequently wanted to change the name.  Normally this would be simply handled by simple edits to the /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow.  However when we made this change we found that boy were we wrong.

Rename the User in /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow

Just use a standard text editor to adjust the old names to reflect the new name.

# cat /etc/passwd | grep olduser
olduser:x:101:10:olduser:/home/olduser:/bin/bash

After the update

# cat /etc/passwd | grep newuser
newuser:x:101:10:newuser:/home/newuser:/bin/bash

# cat /etc/shadow | grep olduser
olduser:$5$WSruhUri$4ewgas1zXKADOU4EUjrLthwg13HLAp6ag2xtoge9Y09:15233::::::

After the update

# cat /etc/shadow | grep newuser
newuser:$5$WSruhUri$4ewgas1zXKADOU4EUjrLthwg13HLAp6ag2xtoge9Y09:15233::::::

Unmount the User’s Home Directory

We need to unmount the home directory, so that we can make changes to the zfs file system where the home directory lives.

# umount /export/home/olduser

Rename the ZFS File System

For consistencies sake we rename the ZFS file system of the user we are changing.

# zfs rename rpool/export/home/olduser rpool/export/home/newuser

Adjust the File System Mount Point

# zfs get mountpoint rpool/export/home/newuser
NAME                     PROPERTY    VALUE                 SOURCE
rpool/export/home/newuser  mountpoint  /export/home/olduser  local

# zfs set mountpoint=/export/home/newuser rpool/export/home/newuser

# zfs get mountpoint rpool/export/home/newuser
NAME                     PROPERTY    VALUE                 SOURCE
rpool/export/home/newuser  mountpoint  /export/home/newuser  local

Adjust  the Autofs Rules

Using a standard text editor adjust the /etc/auto_home file to reflect the new user name in its rules

# cat /etc/auto_home | grep olduser
olduser   localhost:/export/home/&

After the update

# cat /etc/auto_home | grep newuser
newuser   localhost:/export/home/&

Reboot and Validate

Once all of these steps are complete, then you can give this machine a reboot, and make sure that everything is working perfectly.  Once your reboot is complete if you see a prompt like this:

-bash-4.0$

Then you missed something and you need to re-walk through the steps, keep in mind that if you see this prompt more than likely you do not have any paths sourced, thus you will be unable to type commands as you are used to and will need to use the full path of the binaries, here are some examples.

• cat is /usr/gnu/bin/cat
• reboot is /usr/sbin/reboot
• zfs is /usr/sbin/zfs

But since you are extremely detail oriented, which is why you are here reading about how to properly rename a Solaris 11 user then you have already completed all of the above steps perfectly and have performed a successful reboot and validated that everything is working properly.  You are now simply reading to ensure that I haven’t hidden a little tidbit of juicy goodness in the end of this article.

I have not.