Ubuntu Linux Bible, 11th Edition

CHAPTER 11Managing User Accounts

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Working with user accounts
• Working with group accounts
• Configuring centralized user accounts

Adding and managing users are common tasks for Linux system administrators. User accounts keep boundaries between the people who use your systems and between the processes that run on your systems. Groups are a way of assigning rights to your system that can be assigned to multiple users at once.

This chapter describes not only how to create a new user, but also how to create predefined settings and files to configure the user’s environment. Using tools such as the adduser and usermod commands, you can assign settings such as the location of a home directory, a default shell, a default group, and specific user ID and group ID values. With Cockpit, you can add and manage user accounts through a web UI.

To expand beyond user accounts on individual systems, organizations typically centrally managed user databases to store usernames and credentials. This chapter describes protocols such as NIS, LDAP, and Windows Active Directory for centralizing authentication and authorization of users of networked systems.

Creating User Accounts

Every person who uses your Linux system should have a separate user account. Having a user account provides you with an area in which to store files securely as well as a means of tailoring your user interface (GUI, path, environment variables, and so on) to suit the way that you use the computer.

You ...