The reason is that SuSE modified the useradd interface program from 7.x to 8.x. Usernames with "dots" are no more accepted, although everybody use it. I´ve got the same problem and as I didn´t receive ANY help from this list ( besides saying "this is not a security related question") neither from SuSE Support Team, I had to edit useradd source code by myself. Good luck, Mário Júnior ---------------------- Network Admin ----- Original Message ----- From: "lars" <lars@brainlift.de> To: <suse-security@suse.com> Sent: Friday, March 28, 2003 10:33 AM Subject: [suse-security] How to handle usernames? Hi there, I´ve got a strange behaviour which I want to get rid off ... though it may not be the right group here: on a suse linux 8.1 box, doing useradd -s /bin/false -d /... and-so-on ... b.richards to add a mailuseraccount, I always got the reply: invalid username