Seed a user account (CLI)

When deploying Opengist in an automated way (Ansible, Terraform, a bootstrap script, …), you usually want an administrator account to exist right after installation, without having to go through the web setup form. The admin create-user command does exactly that.

Usage

./opengist admin create-user [options]

Option	Description
--username, -u	Username of the new user (same validation rules as the web form: alphanumerics and dashes, ≤ 24).
--password, -p	Password for the new user. Note: visible in the process list, so prefer --password-stdin for automation.
--password-stdin	Read the password from the first line of stdin. Keeps the secret out of the process list and shell history.
--email	Optional email address (enables Gravatar).
--admin	Grant administrator privileges to the new user.

All inputs are flags (including the username). Flags may be given in any order.

Seeding an admin

$ ./opengist admin create-user --username admin --password 's3cret!' --admin --email admin@example.com
User admin has been created with administrator privileges.

Reading the password from stdin is recommended for automation, so it never appears in the process list or your playbook:

$ printf '%s' "$OPENGIST_ADMIN_PASSWORD" | ./opengist admin create-user --username admin --password-stdin --admin
User admin has been created with administrator privileges.

Idempotency

The command is idempotent: if the user already exists it does nothing and exits successfully (0). This makes it safe to run repeatedly from a provisioning playbook.

$ ./opengist admin create-user --username admin --password 's3cret!' --admin
User admin already exists; nothing to do.

TIP

create-user only creates accounts. To change an existing user's password use admin reset-password, and to grant or revoke admin rights use admin toggle-admin.

Ansible example

- name: Ensure the Opengist admin user exists
  shell: |
    printf '%s' '{{ opengist_admin_password }}' | \
    {{ opengist_binary }} admin create-user \
      --username {{ opengist_admin_user }} \
      --password-stdin \
      {% if opengist_admin_email %}--email {{ opengist_admin_email }}{% endif %} \
      --admin
  register: seed
  changed_when: "'has been created' in seed.stdout"