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In Linux, if I want to change a user's home directory, I can use the usermod command:

http://linux.about.com/od/commands/l/blcmdl8_usermod.htm

usermod [-c comment] [-d home_dir [-m]]

[-e expire_date] [-f inactive_time] 
[-g initial_group] [-G group [,...]] 
[-l login_name] [-p passwd] 
[-s shell] [-u uid [-o]] [-L|-U] login

Is there any equivalent command in OS X?

bneely
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ajreal
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  • Do you want to change your account name/home directory name? – Michiel Mar 29 '12 at 12:52
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    This question has been asked before ;). Try dscl (man dscl). For examples look at:

    http://superuser.com/questions/60150/is-there-a-usermod-equivalent-in-terminal-for-os-x-10-6-1

     – user1256923 Mar 29 '12 at 12:57

1 Answers1

3

Since my original answer got transformed in a comment due to it's brevity, here is another go.

The command that you are looking for is dscl on OSX (which works both in OS 10.6 and 10.7 in my experience). As I mentioned this question has been asked before, and you can find the original answer (plus usage examples) on stackExcjange superUser forum at:

https://superuser.com/questions/60150/is-there-a-usermod-equivalent-in-terminal-for-os-x-10-6-1

which provides a number of examples for its use. For instance, adding a user to a group would work as:

dscl . append /Groups/the_group_you_want GroupMembership the_user

In addition, someone did provide a bash script that does what usermod does on linux, and you can find it here:

http://www.splode.com/~friedman/software/scripts/src/arch/noarch-apple-darwin/osx-usermod

(I haven't tested it, so it comes with no guarantees).

HTH

Community
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user1256923
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  • I'm looking for usermod -u, changing UID of user and migrating UID of its files. dscl can't do this. – CharlesB Mar 29 '12 at 13:49
  • @CharlesB have a look at this page then: http://www.inteller.net/notes/change-user-id-on-snow-leopard it's possibly more fiddly than pure usermod -u but as good at it seems to get – user1256923 Mar 29 '12 at 15:56