Linux – Terminal only shows $

command-line-interfacelinuxshellUbuntu

I recently set up a new user using "adduser username" on my server and noticed that when I login I get:

Also, with my new user there is no folder highlighting, or tab completion.

However when I login as root I get a full terminal prompt plus highlighting, completion etc.

root@lin01:~#

Anyone have any idea what I did wrong?

Edit: Solution was to type

chsh -s /bin/bash

While logged in with the $.

Best Answer

Your new user's login shell has been set to /bin/sh, which on Ubuntu is dash. This is a shell intended to be small and fast, to run scripts efficiently. It doesn't have any interactive features. Change your shell to zsh (better) or bash (more common):

chsh -s /bin/bash

If you want to change adduser's default shell, edit /etc/adduser.conf:

DSHELL=/bin/bash

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Linux – Ubuntu OS X LDAP Authentication

the problem is that that guide is wrong, or at least sub-optimal.

/etc/pam.d/common-auth should have:

auth sufficient pam_unix.so nullok_secure nodelay
auth sufficient pam_ldap.so use_first_pass
auth required pam_deny.so

that says that either pam_unix or pam_ldap are sufficient to login, and any login failing both of those is denied. it tries local unix login first - which is extremely useful if your LDAP server is down or unreachable and you still need to login as a local user.

it also uses 'use_first_pass' rather than 'try_first_pass'...they are very similar except that it won't prompt for a password again if the first is wrong.

see the man pages for pam_unix and pam_ldap for more details.

BTW, adding the following to /etc/pam.d/common-session is very useful:

session required pam_limits.so

it allows you to use /etc/security/limits.conf and access.conf etc to have very fine control over which users are allowed to login (e.g. i limit ssh logins on my servers to members of the admins group), and also set resource limits (memory, maxlogins, nice priority, etc) for their login.

Linux – Tab Autocomplete for New User

Check what shell 'newuser' is using. Make sure it's one that actually supports tab completion (like bash or zsh).

You can determine what shell the user is using using the following command

# getent passwd rodjek
rodjek:x:1001:1001:x:/home/rodjek:/bin/zsh

You can change the users shell using the chsh command

# chsh -s /bin/bash rodjek

Best Answer

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Linux – Ubuntu OS X LDAP Authentication

Linux – Tab Autocomplete for New User

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