Creating new user during installation via configuration.nix can't log in after installation

[AMDphreak]

Issue description

Can't login to my user after installing Nixos.
user has a password already set, even though it was not specified. Only way to fix this is to login as root and use passwd myusername.

Steps to reproduce

Edit /mnt/etc/nixos/configuration.nix.
Uncomment section for adding a user. (I also uncommented section for booting KDE at start).
Change username to what you want.
Install NixOS.
Boot NixOS.
Can't login with username. It already has a password.

Technical details

Please run nix-shell -p nix-info --run "nix-info -m" and paste the
results.

[ghost]

same happens if you just useradd w/o password

[stale]

Hello, I'm a bot and I thank you in the name of the community for opening this issue.

To help our human contributors focus on the most-relevant reports, I check up on old issues to see if they're still relevant. This issue has had no activity for 180 days, and so I marked it as stale, but you can rest assured it will never be closed by a non-human.

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[nixos-discourse]

This issue has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there:

https://discourse.nixos.org/t/normal-user-not-listed-in-gdm/10324/2

[lasers]

Is this a PEKBAC issue?

• "Can't login to my user after installing Nixos." in Issue Description.
• Steps to reproduce illustrates an user/password was made on live disc before the installation, not after.

[stale]

I marked this as stale due to inactivity. → More info

[Kaligule]

I had the same problem. It might very well be what @lasers sugested: I created the user while still on the installation medium. From @AMDphreak's description it is clear that this is what he did as well.

I was able to solve it like this (after the finished installation)

1. try to login as kaligule and fail
2. login as root
3. edit the nixos config (nano /etc/nixos/configuration.nix) and comment out the part where the user (kaligule for me) is created
4. rebuild nixos (nixos-rebuild switch)
5. just to make sure (don't know if this is needed): log out and reboot: reboot
6. login as root again
7. edit the nixos config again, add back the part removed in 3.
8. like in point 5 (again, not sure if necessary): log out and reboot
9. log in as kaligule

[fczuardi]

This was happening to me on a new installation on a raspberry pi 4 following the instructions of this wiki page that disables grub in favor of the raspberryPi boot.loader:

  boot.loader.raspberryPi = {
    enable = true;
    version = 4;
  };
  boot.loader.grub.enable = false;

However the configuration.nix generated by the nixos-generate-config command suggests using this one instead:

  # Enables the generation of /boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf
  boot.loader.generic-extlinux-compatible.enable = true;
  boot.loader.grub.enable = false;

And that worked, the generation with the user created on nix-rebuild switch survived a reboot :)