Anyone help with these points

Sure... :)

1. useradd in RedHat does not appear to understand the -p option and it

is not mentioned in the man pages. Does suse recognise this option and as a result allow a single line entry for a user and their password?

It does indeed...

/home/ogley> /usr/sbin/useradd usage: useradd [-u uid [-o]] [-g group] [-G group,...] [-d home] [-s shell] [-c comment] [-m [-k template]] [-f inactive] [-e expire ] [-p passwd] name useradd -D [-g group] [-b base] [-s shell] [-f inactive] [-e expire ]

2. If I type useradd as root I get an error - "bash: useradd: command not

found" but $PATH reports /usr/sbin as part of the path and this is where useradd is located. What am I missing?

If you run the full path at the command line, does it work?

3. Can anyone recommend a good source of information on writing shell

scripts - I might then be able to fiddle around with the passwd command.

linux.oreilly.com has info on a number of books about bash, Korn, [t]csh shells...

ISTR they used to do a Shel Scripting in a Nutshell book too, they may still do...