useradd : unable to lock passwd file

useradd is a raw command.which distro are you using.
also you need to be root(admin) user to do that.try as root.
remember useradd needs many things(mostly auto set) like the default /home/user directory,shell,ur details etc etc.there are gui tools available in most modern distros like Debian or Fedora

thanks for ur reply


iam using redhat 9.0 and iam logged in as user root



but iam getting the same error as " unable to lock passwd file "


what to do

this is queit a old distro use fedora 7 (redhat's latest version is called fedora)
the tool used if u have GUI GNOME working is "redhat-config-users" i think.infact rh website too have details.
if u want to know more about cmd u can try in terminal "man useradd"
ex usage in cli is like u need to specify ur primary group,secondary groups(wheel),home directory,user details passwd etc

Hey look in your /etc/passwd ..... there should be some lock files... passwd.lock etc.Delete them,restart and get going.

thaks for ur reply

i have deleted /etc/passwd.lock file

now its working