jhamrick/restuser

RESTUser is a lightweight tool that lets you create new user accounts on a machine by making a simple HTTP request, rather than logging in and running commands manually. Instead of using a traditional HTTP server on a network port, it uses a Unix socket, a faster, local communication method often used in Docker environments. When you send a POST request to the socket with a username, RESTUser creates that user on the host machine and sends back a JSON response with details like the user's home directory, ID number, shell, and group ID. This is useful in containerized environments where you might want a Docker container to be able to create users on the host without needing SSH access or direct command-line permissions. The main use case is in development or testing setups where you're running multiple Docker containers and need them to dynamically create user accounts on the underlying host machine. For example, if you're building a CI/CD system or a multi-tenant application that runs in containers, you could have one container request that a new user be created on the host, and another container would have permission to use that account. Because it communicates through a mounted socket rather than exposing a network port, it's more secure, only containers explicitly given access to the socket file can create users. The project includes simple test setup with Docker, letting you spin up a server container and a separate test client to verify that user creation works, then easily clean up afterward. The README notes that you run it with sudo (since creating users requires root permission) and then mount the socket into containers that need to use it. It's a minimal, focused tool rather than a full-featured user management system, it does one thing and does it through a streamlined interface.