Linux useradd command

In Linux, useradd command is a command-line utility which is used to add or remove a

user on a Linux server and Unix based operating system.

In a different type of Linux distribution, the useradd command may be slightly different.

The useradd command performs the below tasks:

o It edits the files for newly created user

like /etc/passwd, /etc/shadow, /etc/group and /etc/gshadow.
o It creates and opens a new home directory.
o It allows us to set ownerships and permissions to the home directory.

Syntax:

1. useradd [options] username

In order to use the useradd command, we have to log-in with root or sudo access.

Before using Linux useradd command, let's understand some common terms that are
used in the Linux command line.

o Username: A username is a name that is used to login to the Linux system. It is

displayed when we turn on our machine. The username length should be between
1 to 32 characters.

Password: A password is a secret code that is used to protect your system from
unauthorized access. It is stored in etc/shadow file in an encrypted format.

User ID (UID): Linux provide a unique Id to every user; it is called user identification
number or User ID or UID. By default, the UID for the root user is reserved as zero, and
the remaining UID from 1 to 99 is reserved for other predefined accounts. Further, UID's
from 100-999 are reserved for groups and system accounts.

Group ID (GID): The GID or Group ID is a group identification number provided by the
Linux system. It is stored in /etc/group file.

User Info: It allows us to define some additional information about the user, such as user
full name. It is optional.
Home Directory: It is an absolute location for a user.

Shell: It is an absolute location of a user's shell i.e. /bin/bash.

To create a new user by useradd command, execute the useradd command followed by
username as follows:

1. sudo useradd JTP3

The above command will ask for the system administration password, enter the password.
It will create a user named as JTP3. This username is used by the user to login the system.
The username must be unique. Consider the below output:

To set the password for the newly created user, execute the below command:

1. sudo passwd JTP3

The above command will ask for the new password, enter the password and retype the
new password. It will update the password for the specified user. Consider the below
output:

Create a user with a home directory

Sometimes the newly created user may or may not assign a home directory. To create a
user and to forcefully assign a home directory to it, execute the below command:

1. sudo useradd -m Demo

Consider the below snap of terminal:

The above command will ask for the system administration password and create a
directory home/Demo for the user Demo.

Create a user with a different home directory

Linux allows us to create a home directory on a different place instead of the default
folder. Use the -d option with useradd command to create a different home directory.
Execute the below command:

1. sudo useradd -m -d /Demo1 Demo1

The above command will create a Demo1 folder under the root directory for the user
Demo1. Consider the below snap of the terminal:

Create a user with an expiry date

To create a user with an expiry date that means after a particular date, it will be auto-
deleted.

1. sudo useradd -d /home/test -e 2020-03-16 Demo2

The above command will create a user with a specified expiry date. It will create a user
named Demo2, which will be auto-deleted after 16 March 2020. Consider the below snap
of the terminal:

It will be useful when you want to create an account for any user who is going to depart
after a short period.

Linux su Commands
The su command allows you to run a shell as another user.
Syntax:

1. su <username>

Example:

1. su jtp

Look at the above snapshot, user account is changed from sssit to jtp.

su to root
You can change the user to root when you know the root password.

Syntax:

1. su root

su as root
The root user can become any existing user without knowing that user's password.
Otherwise, password is needed.

Example:

1. su - sssit
Look at the above snapshot, it is asking for password while switching from user jtp to sssit.

Now let's look at the following example.

Example:

1. su - jtp

Look at the above snapshot, we are at user root. While switching from root to jtp it didn't
ask for password and we're successfully arrived at user jtp.

su - $username
By default, the su command maintains the same shell environment. To access the target
user's shell environment use the su command with (-) followed by the target user name.

Example:

1. su - jtp
2. su jtp
Look at the above snapshot, with the command "su - jtp" current shell environment
is /home/jtp and user is also jtp. With the command "su jtp" current shell environment
is /home/sssit and user is sssit.

su -
If any user name is not mentioned then by default, it will assume root as the target user.

Example:

1. su -

Look at the above snapshot, command "su -" has assumed root as the target.

Running Program As Another User / sudo Command

The sudo command allows a user to start programs with the credentials of another user.

Example:

1. /usr/sbin/useradd -m akki
Look at the above snapshot, shell gives the above message while creating usr 'akki'.

Command With sudo

With sudo command we're allowed to create new users on the system without becoming
root or without knowing the root password.

Example:

1. sudo /usr/sbin/useradd -m akki

Look at the above snapshot, user 'akki' is created with sudo command.

sudo su -
By default, some Linux systems like Ubuntu, don't have a password set for root user. It
means you can't login as root user.

To perform root like task, a user is given all sudo rights via etc/sudoers. All the users that
are members of the admin group can use sudo command for performing root tasks.

Syntax:

1. grep admin /etc/sudoers

Look at the above snapshot, commnd "grep admin /etc/sudoers" allows all the admin
group users to gain root peivileges.

By typing sudo su - a user can become root user without typing password for root. The
sudo command will ask for the user's own password.

Syntax:

1. sudo su -

Look at the above snapshot, bash is asking for sssit password not for root password, after
that we are logged in as root user.

Linux User Management

User management includes everything from creating a user to deleting a user on your system.
User management can be done in three ways on a Linux system.

Graphical tools are easy and suitable for new users, as it makes sure you'll not run into any
trouble.

Command line tools includes commands like useradd, userdel, passwd, etc. These are mostly
used by the server administrators.

Third and very rare tool is to edit the local configuration files directly using vi.

1. /etc/passwd

The local user database in Linux is /etc/passwd directory.

Look at the above snapshot, it has seven columns separated by a colon. Starting from the left
columns denotes username, an x, user id, primary group id, a description, name of home
directory and a login shell.

root
The root user is the superuser and have all the powers for creating a user, deleting a user and can
even login with the other user's account. The root user always has userid 0.

useradd
With useradd commands you can add a user.

Syntax:

1. useradd -m -d /home/<userName> -c "<userName>" <userName>

Example:

1. useradd -m -d /home/xyz -c "xyz" xyz

Look at the above snapshot, we have created a user xyz along with creating a home directory (-
m), setting the name of home directory (-d), and a description (-c).

The 'xyz' received userid as 1004 and primary group id as 1004.

/etc/default/useradd
File /etc/default/useradd contains some user default options. The command useradd -D can be
used to display this file.

Syntax:

1. useradd -D

userdel
To delete a user account userdel command is used.

Syntax:

1. userdel -r <userName>
Example:

1. userdel -r xyz

Look at the above snapshot, first we have shown the xyz user account with 'tail' command. To
delete it, command "userdel -r xyz" is passed.

To recheck, again 'tail' command is passed and as you can see no xyz user account is displayed.

Hence, it is deleted.

Linux User Password

This chapter tells you about the local users password. You will learn here to change the
password, set the password using different methods.

First method is by using passwd command.

Second method is with openssel passwd command.

Using passwd command

passwd

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A user can set the password with the command passwd. Old password has to be typed
twice before entering the new one.
Syntax:

1. passwd

Look at the above snapshot, shell warns the user from creating a simple password.
Ultimately, after two or three attempts if password is not changed then the
command passwd fails and you have to pass the command again.

Although, these rules are not applied on the root user neither they need to type the old
password. They can change the password directly.

Syntax:

1. passwd <userName>

Example:

1. passwd jtp
Look at the above snapshot, password is changed successfully without any warning.

Shadow File
Shadow files are the encrypted user passwords which are kept in /etc/shadow. This file
is read-only directory and can be read only by root.

Syntax:

1. /etc/shadow

Look at the above snapshot, the /etc/shadow file contains nine columns separeted by
colons.

Starting from left to right, these nine columns contain username, encrypted password, last
changed password day, number of days password must be left unchanged, password
expiry day, warning number of days before password expiry, number of days after expiry
before disabling the account, and the day account was disabled. Last column has no
meaning yet.

Encryption With passwd

Passwords are always stored in encrypted format. Encryption is done with crypt function.
The simplest way to add a user with a password is to add the user with the
command useradd -m and then set the user's password with command passwd.
Syntax:

1. useradd -m <userName>

Example:

1. useradd -m akki

Syntax:

1. passwd <typePassword>

Example:

1. passwd ****

Look at the above snapshot, user name akki is created with a password successfully.

Using openssl passwd

Encryption With openssl

To create a user with a password -p option is also used, but that requires an encrypted
password.

Thid encrypted password can be generated with openssl passwd command.

openssl passwd command can genereate several distinct hashes for the same pssword.
To do this, it uses salt.
This salt can be chosen and is visible as the first two characters of the hash as shown
below.

Look at the above snapshot, the first two characters start from the defined sale '32'.

To create a user with password using openssl command, following syntax is used.

Syntax:

1. useradd -m -p $(openssl paeewd hunter2) <userName>

Example:

1. useradd -m -p $(openssl paeewd hunter2) aaa

Look at the above snapshot, user aaa is created and its password is kept into command
history.
/etc/login.defs
The /etc/login.defs file contains some default settings like password aging and length
settings.,

Syntax:

1. grep PASS /etc/login.defs

chage
The chage command can be used by a user to know the information about their password.
The -l option is used to list the information.

Syntax:

1. chage -l <userName>

Example:

1. chage -l abc
Disabling A Password
Passwords in /etc/shadow are not saved starting with exclamation mark (!). If exclamation
mark is present in starting then password can not be used.

This feature can be used to disable a password and the process is called locking,
disabling and suspending a user account. It can be done in vi or
with usermod command.

Here, we'll disable the password of akki with usermod command.

Syntax:

1. usermod -L <userName>

Example:

1. usermod -L akki

Look at the above snapshot, first command shows hashed password of akki, and
command "usermod -L akki" disables the password of akki. Now user akki can't
authenticate using this password.
Look at the above snapshot, hashed password is preceded with !, which means it is
disabled.

Please note that root user will be able to open the akki account as password is not needed
here. And if user akki wouldn't have set password, then akki can also login.

You can unlock your account with usermod -U.

Syntax:

1. usermod -U <userName>

Example:

1. usermod -U akki

Look at the above snapshot, hashed password of akki is unlocked now as there is
no (!) mark in starting.

Linux Groups
Users can be listed in different groups. Group allow us to set permission on the group
level instead of setting the permission on individual level.
Every Linux distribution have a graphical tool to manage groups. Groups can be managed
by graphical tools, command line tools and by vi or vigr depending upon the user's
experience. Only experienced users should use vi or vigr to manage groups, since it will
do proper locking or changes in the file.

groupadd

The groupadd command creates or add a group in our system.

Syntax:

1. groupadd <groupName>

Example:

1. groupadd php
2. groupadd java
3. groupadd android
4. groupadd spring

Look at the above snapshot, groups php, java, android and spring are created with
groupadd command.

Group File
The /etc/group file defines the group membership. A user can be a member of more than
one group.

Syntax:

1. /etc/group
Look at the above snapshot, first column indicates group name, second is the group's
encrypted password which may remain empty also, third is group identification (GID) and
fourth is the list of members. Fourth list is empty as these groups do not have members.

Groups
The group command tells about the group where current user belongs to.

Syntax:

1. groups

Look at the above snapshot, user jtp and sssit belongs to the different groups.

usermod
The group members can be edited with usermod or useradd command. If a group is not
listed then by default, usermod command will remove the user from every group of which
he is a member. Here, -a (append) option is used to prevent this from happening.
Syntax:

1. usermod -a -G <group> <userName>

Example:

1. usermod -a -G php akki

2. usermod -a -G php abc
3. usermod -a -G java jtp

Look at the above snapshot, we have displayed the list of /etc/group.

User akki and abc are added into the group php, user jtp is added into java.

groupmod
With the help of groupmod command you can change the name of an already existing
group.

Syntax:

1. groupmod -n <oldGroup> <newGroup>

Example:

1. groupmod -n sql spring

Look at the above snapshot, group spring is changed into sql.

gruopdel
The command groupdel will delete a group permanently from the system.

Syntax:

1. groupdel <group>

Example:

1. groupdel sql

Look at the above snapshot, group sql is deleted from the system.

gpasswd
Control of group membership can be passed on to another user with gpasswd command.

Syntax:

1. gpsswd -A <user> <group>

Example:

1. gpasswd -A jtp java

Look at the above snapshot, we have passed the membership of java to the user with
command "gpasswd -A jtp java". Then we su to jtp and add aaa to java.

Group administrators need not to be a member of the group. They can add or remove a
member without being a member of that group.

File /etc/gshadow keeps the information about the group administrators as shown in
below snapshot.

To remove all the administrators from a group, set an empty administrator list.
Syntax:

1. gpasswd -A "" <group>

Example:

1. gpasswd -A "" java

Look at the above snapshot, administrator jtp is removed from the group java.

Linux Add User to Group

Linux allows us to add users to a specific user group. A user account can be added to
more than one group. For example, the users that have sudo rights can access the sudo
commands to gain related permission. Moreover, we can configure the file permission
and other rights to a group.

Adding a user to a group is a straight forward process, all we need to execute the
appropriate command. We will walk through all the scenarios related to user and group,
such as how to add, delete, remove users to a group. Moreover, we will also learn how to
list groups. First, understand the Linux groups:

Linux Groups
Linux groups are the community of the users that have the right to administrate and
organize the users and file permission in a Linux system. The main motive of creating a
group is to define the set of permissions such as read and write permission or allowing
the shared resources of groups.

Types of Linux Groups

In Linux-based system, there are two types of groups, which are:
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o Primary group
o Secondary or supplementary group

Primary group: When we create a file through a specific user account, by default, the
filegroup is set to the user's primary group. It will provide the same name as the file user
group as the user account name. The primary group stores the user information in
/etc/passwd file.

Secondary or supplementary group: The main motive to create a secondary group

is to allow the specific permission to limited users. For example, if we want to add any
user to the sudo group, the added user will inherit the sudo rights, and be able to run the
sudo commands. If we add a user to the docker group, then it will inherit the properties
of the docker group and be able to run the docker commands.

A user can be added to precisely one primary group. It is not necessary to add a user to
a secondary group, so a user can be added to zero or more secondary groups.

Note: Only the root user has the right to add a user to a group.

Add a Group
To create a new user group on a Linux system, execute the groupadd
command, followed by the group name. You will need the sudo access to gain the
elevated permissions. Execute the command as follows:

1. sudo groupadd jtpGroup

The above command will ask for the system administrative password, type the password.
Consider the below output:

How to add a user to a Group

Adding users to a group is a straight forward process. We can add users to a group by
using usermod command. To add a user to a group, execute this command, followed by
the group name and user name. The group name is the name of a group in which you
want to add a particular user.

let's create two users, user1 and user2, execute the command as follows:

1. sudo useradd user1

2. sudo useradd user2

The above command will add the two users called user1 and user2. Consider the below
output:

To add the user to a group, execute the following command:

1. sudo usermod -a -G jtpGroup user1

The above command will add the user1 to jtpGroup. Consider the below output:

The -a option used to append the group; it is recommended to use this option when
adding a new user to a group. If you do not use the -a option, the user will be removed
from any group not specified after -G option.

If the usermod command executes successfully, it will not display any output, but in case
of failure, it will post warning messages such as user or group does not exist.

Add a user to multiple groups

Linux system allows us to add a user to various groups. However, a user only can be added
to one primary group, but it can be added to any number of the secondary group.
To assign a user to a secondary group, use the usermod command, followed by group
names ( separate them by a comma) and user name.

let's create secondary groups named JtpGroup2 and JtpGroup3:

1. sudo groupadd JtpGroup2

2. sudo groupadd JtpGroup3

Now, add the user1 ( which is already added to JtpGroup, so its primary group is JtpGroup)
to the secondary group jtpGroup2, JtpGroup3. Execute the below command.

1. sudo usermod -a -G jtpGroup, JtpGroup2, JtpGroup3 user1

The above command will add the user1 to JtpGroup2 and JtpGroup3 without removing it
from JtpGroup. Consider the below output:

we can specify any numbers of groups, specify them by a comma after the primary group.

List the Groups in Linux

Many groups exist in Linux; these groups can be user-defined as well as pre-defined. We
can list all the available groups by using getent command.

To list all the available groups in the Linux system, execute the command as follows:

1. getent group

The above command will display a large list of pre-defined and user-defined groups.
Consider the below snap of the output:
The above snap of the output is taken from the last. At the starting of the output, there is
an extensive list of pre-defined groups.

Remove a User from Group

The Linux system allows us to remove a user from a group. To remove a user from a group,
execute the gpasswd command with -d option followed by group name and user name.
Consider the below command:

1. sudo gpasswd -d user1 jtpGroup

The above command will remove the user from the JtpGroup. Consider the below output:

This group will be assigned a new group configuration at the next login. If the user is
logged in, the changes cannot be seen immediately.

Change a User's Primary Group

A user can be added to more than one group. In such scenarios, there will be only one
primary group, and the others will be secondary groups. The access permission of files
will be assigned to the primary group. Sometimes we may need to change the primary
group; it can be changed by using the usermod command.

To change the user's primary group, execute the usermod command as follows:

1. sudo usermod -g JtpGroup2 user1

Consider the below output:

The above command will remove the user1 from JtpGroup and add it to JtpGroup2. The
-g option is used to assign a user to a primary group, and -G option is used to assign a
user to a secondary group.

Linux id Command
Linux id command is used to print the genuine and effective user ID and group ID. A user
ID (UID) is a particular user identity, whereas group IDs (GIDs) can contain more than one
user's identity. This command is a useful tool for user management.

Tracing the names of users and groups, and their corresponding UIDs and GIDs is a
complex task for the new user. This is important for user management. In such cases, the
id command will help us.

Syntax:

1. id [option]... [user name]

Options:

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The supported options by the id command are as following:

o -a: It is used to ignore the compatibility with other versions.

o -Z, --context: It is used to print only the security context of the process.
o -g, --group: It is used to print only the effective GID.
o -G, --groups: It is used to print all group Ids.
o -n, --name: It is used to print a name instead of a number.
o -r, --real: It is used to print the real ID instead of the effective ID, with -ugG
o -u, --user: It is used to print only the effective UID.
o -z, --zero: It is used to delimit entries with NULL characters, except the whitespace;
o --help: It used to display the help documentation and exit.
How to use it?
The id command is a built-in utility; therefore, we do not need to install any additional
tools to use it. The 'id' command can be used without arguments. Execute the command
as follows:

1. id

From the above command, the output will use the active user. Its default behavior is as
follows:

From the above output, we can see there are several fields. The first two fields are the UID
and GID for the user 'javatpoint'. Whereas, rest are the groups with their respective GID
that the 'javatpoint' is a part of.

Let's see some other useful examples of the id command.

Find a specific user's UID

To find a user's specific user ID, execute the command with the '-u' option. For example.
Find the user Id for the user 'javatpoint', execute the command as follows:

1. id -u javatpoint

Consider the below output:

Find a specific user's GID

To find a specific user's GID, execute the command with the '-g' option. For example, to
find the GID for the user 'javatpoint', execute the command as follows:

1. id -g javatpoint

Consider the below output:

Display the real GID and UID instead of effective
We can display the real UID and GID instead of effective ids by executing the command
with the '-r' option.

To display the real UID and GID for the user 'javatpoint', execute the following commands:

1. id -r -u javatpoint
2. id -r -g javatpoint

Consider the below output:

Display all the different Group IDs

To display all the different GIDs, execute the command with the '-G' option as follows:

1. id -G

Consider the below output:

Display effective GROUP ID

To display only the effective GID, execute the command with the '-g' option as follows:

1. id -g

Consider the below output:

Getting Help
If you get stuck during the use of the id command, you can take help from your terminal.
You can read the manual page and help documentation. To take help, execute the below
command:

1. id --help

The above command will display the help documentation as follows:

To read the manual, execute the command as follows:

1. man id

It will display the manual as given below: