---
name: "grab-account"
section: "8"
platform: "linux"
package: "chiark-scripts"
version: "8.0.1"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/grab-account"
---

# grab-account(8)

add new account synchronised to remote system

## NAME

grab-account - add new account synchronised to remote system

## SYNOPSIS

**grab-account** *local-user* *source* **\[***remote-user***\]**

## DESCRIPTION

**grab-account** reconfigures sync-accounts to start synchronising a specified local user (which may not yet exist) from a specified remote system, and then invokes sync-accounts once to synchronise from that source.

**/etc/sync-accounts/createuser** should contain a **addhere** line in the appropriate source section (ie, after **host** *source*). grab-account adds a\
   **user** *local-user* \[**remote=***remote-user*\]\
 directive just before **addhere** and runs **sync-accounts** *source*.

## EXIT STATUS

- **0**

  All went well.

- any other

  There were problems.

## FILES

**/etc/sync-accounts**; See also [**sync-accounts**(8)](/sync-accounts/8.md).

## ENVIRONMENT

See [**sync-accounts**(8)](/sync-accounts/8.md).

## BUGS

There is no locking of **/etc/sync-accounts** so do not invoke grab-account from a script, or more than once at a time by hand.  Do not edit /etc/sync-accounts by hand and also simultaneously run grab-account.

The mechanism involving **addhere** is suboptimal.  This should be done with an include feature in sync-accounts, so that grab-account does not have to edit a configuration file that really belongs to the sysadmin.

## AUTHOR

**grab-account** and this manpage are part of the **sync-accounts** package which was written by Ian Jackson \<ian@chiark.greenend.org.uk\>. They are Copyright 1999-2000,2002 Ian Jackson \<ian@davenant.greenend.org.uk\>, and Copyright 2000-2001 nCipher Corporation Ltd.

The sync-accounts package is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3, or (at your option) any later version.

This is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, consult the Free Software Foundation's website at www.fsf.org, or the GNU Project website at www.gnu.org.

## SEE ALSO

[**sync-accounts**(8)](/sync-accounts/8.md),  [**sync-accounts**(5)](/sync-accounts/5.md),  [**passwd**(5)](/passwd/5.md)