useradd and php crypt()

Question

Hi All,

I need your help with this frustrating problem.

I'm running: Debian Linux 5.0. with webmin version 1.510.

When I create a new user using the webmin interface and I connect to the pop3 account, everything works great. When I generate a new user using this PHP code:

$pass = crypt("user1");
shell_exec("sudo /usr/sbin/useradd user1 -g users -c \"user one\" -s /bin/sh -p $pass");

The user (and ofcourse mail acct) are generated just fine. However, I cannot login to this pop3 account. Everytime I try, I get an auth error. It seems that the password I'm generating with crypt(); is not right and I can tell by looking at it, it looks very diff than the pattern of the one generated by the system.

Any advice? Thank you in advance, CA