Fedora Linux

Managing Users and Groups

In an age of viruses, worms, and identity theft, keeping information private and secure has taken on great importance. Managing user identity creates the framework for system security—even on a single-user system, where a distinction is maintained between using the system as the normal user and using the system as the root user.

How Do I Do That?

Almost everyone identifies themselves as both an individual and as a member of several groups. Linux uses separate user and group identities to reconstruct this two-level structure inside the system.

For example, company employee Richard might be all of the following:

• A member of the IT department

• Located at the company’s Toronto office

• The leader of the team putting together the big sales pitch to Acme, Ltd.

• Part of the Christmas party committee

• A player in the Tuesday evening company soccer league

(And that doesn’t even touch on life outside of the company!)

The system administrator configures Richard’s account to indicate his many involvements within the company. At the user level, the name richard is assigned to him, and a password and home directory are assigned. richard is then placed into the groups it, toronto, acmeproposal, christmas, and soccer.

Fedora Core extends this system using a scheme called user private group (UPG), which means that Richard also has his own private group, also named richard. UPG makes a lot of sense when you look at permissions.

Managing users graphically

The Fedora GUI tool for managing ...