CPanel create accounts with wrong GroupID:UserID

[AlexAT]

I have box for a while and asked datacenter to install CPanel on it.

After installation I realized that newly created accounts have wrong GroupID:UserID.
They can be found in the /etc/passwd, /etc/group

On my other box Cpanel accounts started from 32000 ID.
But on this box they started just right from 500.

Also when new account created I have record in /etc/passwd with GroupID and UserID+1, i.e. for accounts ac1, ac2, ac3 I have records:

ac1:x:528:529::/home/ac1:/usr/local/cpanel/bin/noshell
ac2:x:529:530::/home/ac2:/usr/local/cpanel/bin/noshell
ac3:x:530:531::/home/ac3:/usr/local/cpanel/bin/noshell

That way I have all quota on my box mixed between different acounts and experienced much problems.

So my question - how to make Cpanel start creating account from 32000 ?

I tried manually update last records from /etc/passwd, /etc/group but it seems Cpanel does not take data from these files for creating new accounts.

Please help me!..

cPanel.net Support Ticket Number: 109

[Juanra]

WHM -> Server setup -> Minimum Uid
See also /etc/login.defs or man useradd

[AlexAT]

Thank you very much!

It helps but not in 100%.

/etc/login.defs - does not affect account creation.

When I set UID to 32000 within the WHM it creates entries like this:

aaa1com:x:32001:530::/home/aaa1com:/usr/local/cpanel/bin/jailshell

so - where can I change minimum group ID?

[Juanra]

Originally posted by AlexAT
Thank you very much!

It helps but not in 100%.

/etc/login.defs - does not affect account creation.

When I set UID to 32000 within the WHM it creates entries like this:


so - where can I change minimum group ID?

My mistake, you're right. Have a look at /scripts/realadduser (I think that's the script which effectively adds users). It restricts ids like this:

if (int($minuid) < 1) {
        $minuid = 500;
}
$mingid = 500;

$maxuid = 32000;
$maxgid = 32000;

where minuid is optionally set from WHM.

I don't know if there's a good reason to do it that way, but I don't know if there's any good reason to mess with this either. It should not affect quotas at all, as long as each user has their own unique uid. Also in a standard cpanel box there are not group quotas, so that shouldn't affect either. I really wouldn't touch this.

[AlexAT]

yes, I think better to not change this

It seems I find the solution:
Under the /etc I modified passwd and group files to relate to each other.
Then I recreate each account.

I have no much accounts so will do it quickly.

I even do not want think about if this happen to any other my production box with hundreds of client

[oderland]

We have this problem on 4 production servers, userid is -1 in diffrance to groupid
Any fix for that? Users is all mixed up!!!

I've been in contact with cpanel bur no answer in several days!

Anyone?

[AlexAT]

I fixed this manually.
You need to modify /etc/group and /etc/passwd.
You can also modify /etc/shadow but it is not very important.

Modify them carefully (take backup), make each user have own groupID and userID (I used Excel for separate and merge data - VERY helpfull, VERY).
Then create new account and see what info added - if /etc/passwd and /etc/group contain equal data for IDs then your modification is correct (sometimes it can use old ID's - so I keep creating accounts to make sure all new ID's are syncronized).
If not - then you can use just added UserID and GroupID to determine where the problem is and fix it again.

Once this is done you need to manually chmod /home/ACCOUNT files for each affected account and then run /scripts/fixquotas - otherwise your users will have a problem with they sites and quotas.
Be carefull with chmod'ing - it is not easy to chmod user's home dir (use existing and with correct settings user account for example of chmoding the affected accounts).

I performed all of this and seems my clients now are happy.
Most important - I'm happy


Too bad that this happen on different our servers and there were too much accounts to modify by hand.
I think it's happen because cPanel does not lock all the necessary files during account creating.
Seems we definitely need a scripts for this.

[oderland]

thanks Alexei

do you know if any changes to passwd files i user/etc dir has to be done?
I know that we had some problems before with virtual mail accounts/imap
after changes in /etc/passwd

Have a nice weekend

/Jack, Sweden

[AlexAT]

I did no such changes.
All existing, affected and new accounts works fine for a several months.
So it seems described by me changes are fully enough.

[challii]

is it ok for the uid and gid numbers to be different? just they seem to overlap on our servers...

frluphiu:x:32065:32066::/home/frluphiu:/usr/local/cpanel/bin/jailshell
gledrlex:x:32066:32067::/home/gledrlex:/usr/local/cpanel/bin/jailshell