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Linux Basic Series: User and Group Management(P4)
This article explains how to create, change and manage user and groups in Linux.
This is the 4th part of 7 part series where I explain the Basics of Linux.
Creating and managing user accounts
Create new user accounts
The 'useradd' command is used to create new user accounts.
sudo useradd new_user
This command adds a new user with the username 'new_user'.
The above commands tels us that new_user has been created.
Change the password for a user account
The 'passwd' command is used to set or change the password for a user account.
sudo passwd new_user
This command changes or sets new password of 'new_user'.
Now you can log in using the command:
su new_user
Modify user account
The 'usermod' command is used to modify existing user accounts.
sudo usermod -c "This is a new user" new_user
This will add a comment about the user or a short description related to the user.
sudo usermod -d /home/newuser new_user
This will change the home directory of the user to /home/newuser.
Managing groups
Create new groups
The 'groupadd' command is used to create new groups.
sudo groupadd newgroup
This will create a new group called "newgroup".
Add or remove users
The 'usermod' command can also be used to add or remove users from a group.
sudo usermod -aG newgroup new_user
In this command, the '-aG' option specifies that you want to add the user "newuser" to the "newgroup" group. The '-a' option means that you want to append the group membership to the existing list of groups that the user belongs to, rather than replacing it. The '-G' option specifies the name of the group to which you want to add the user.
Delete group
The 'groupdel' command is used to delete groups.
sudo groupdel newgroup
This command will delete 'newgroup' group from the system, along with any associated user accounts or permissions.
Changing user and group ownership
Change owner
The 'chown' command is used to change the owner of a file or directory.
sudo chown new_user test.txt
The above command will change the owner of a file called 'test.txt' to a user named 'newuser'
Change group ownership
The 'chgrp' command is used to change the group ownership of a file or directory.
sudo chgrp newgroup test.txt
The above command will change the group ownership of the file 'test.txt' to a group named 'newgroup'.
