Introduction to User management

and system administration in Linux

What is shell (sh)
• Command language interpreter that executes commands
read from a command line string, the standard input, or a
specified file.
 What is Bourne Shell
• (bsh)
Default interpreter for Version 7 Unix
• Unix like systems have /bin/sh
• Invokes the Bourne shell an interactive command
interpreter and command-programming language
What is Bash
• Bourne Again Shell (bash)
• Free and enhanced version of the Bourne shell (bsh)
distributed with Linux and GNU operating systems
Bash Version
• Default shell on Ubuntu is Bash (Bourne Again SHell)
⚬ $ bash --version
env
• command to print the list of environment variables or
run a utility in an altered environment without having
to modify existing environment
User management
• Creating User
Accounts
• Deleting User
Accounts
• Enabling User
Accounts
• Disabling User
Accounts
• Assigning Groups to
Users
• Assigning Shells to
 User management
• Add New User
⚬ adduser
￭ Add user to the system according to CLI options
and configuration information in
/etc/adduser.conf
￭ friendlier than useradd
￭ set home_dir, group, uid, gid, shell for new user
⚬ useradd
￭ Low level utility for adding users
low level means closest to raw data, to the kernel interface etc.

Syntax: $ sudo adduser [options] user

 User management
• Add New Group
⚬ addgroup
￭ Add group to the system according to CLI
options and configuration information in
/etc/adduser.conf
￭ friendlier than groupadd
⚬ groupadd
￭ Low level utility for adding groups

Syntax: $ sudo addgroup [options] [--gid ID] group

$ sudo groupadd [options] group
 User management
• Delete User
⚬ deluser
￭ removes user from the system according to CLI
options and configuration information in
/etc/deluser.conf
⚬ userdel
￭ Low level utility for deleting users

Syntax: $ sudo deluser [options] user

$ sudo userdel [options] user
 User management
• Delete Group
⚬ delgroup
￭ removes group from the system according to CLI
options and configuration information in
/etc/deluser.conf
⚬ groupdel
￭ Low level utility for deleting groups

Syntax: $ sudo delgroup [options] [--only-if-empty] group

$ sudo groupdel [options] group
 User management
• Modify User
⚬ usermod
￭ modify a user account such as username,
password, home directory, default shell etc

Syntax: $ sudo usermod [options] user

User management
• Add user to a group
$ sudo usermod -a -G groupname username

• Change user's primary group

$ sudo usermod -g groupname username

• Remove user from a group

$ sudo gpasswd -d username groupname
 User management
• chsh - change login shell for a user
$ sudo chsh [options] [LOGIN}

Available shells can be seen in /etc/shells file

• Change user's primary group

$ sudo usermod -g groupname username
see the groups in which the user belong using groups command

• Remove user from a group

$ sudo gpasswd -d username groupname
User management
• passwd command
⚬ Force Users to change passwords next time they
login
⚬ Lock a user's password (prevent it from being used)
⚬ Set minimum number of days before changing
password
⚬ Specify user when to change password
⚬ Set max number of days to use password without
changing
 User management
• Disable User
$ sudo passwd -l user //lock

• Enable User
$ sudo passwd -u user //unlock

• Force to change password on next login

$ sudo passwd -e user //expire

• Max number of days a password remain valid

$ sudo passwd -x max_days user

• number of days to show a warning to change password

$ sudo passwd -w warn_days user
Switch User
• su username
• su [options] [-] [user [arguments...]]

• Can be used as a substitute user to run commands or

switch user.
Linux permissions
• User (u): Owner of the file or directory

• Group (g): Group of users added to have similar

permissions

• Others (o): anyone else other than owner and the

group
Linux permission Types
• Read (r): Read the contents of a file

• Write (w): Write and edit the contents of a file or a

directory

• Execute (x): Execute a program that is written in a file

or directory
Linux permission Types
• Read has value 4

• Write has value 2

• Execute has value 1

Linux permission String
• 10 characters in Linux Permission String (output of
ls -al)
⚬ First Character is the type of the file,
⚬ The first three characters of the remaining nine
characters are permissions for the user
⚬ The middle three characters are permissions for
group
⚬ Last three characters are permissions for others
Linux permission Matrix
Linux permission
Symbolic
• User => u
• Group => g
• Others => o
• All => a
• read => r
• write => w
• execute => x
• + => add
• - => remove
• = => set
Linux permission
Symbolic
chmod - Change Mode
• chmod command is used to change the permissions
of a file or directory
⚬ chmod [permissions] [filename]
⚬ chmod -R [permissions] [directoryname]
 chown - Change
•Ownership
chown command is used to change the ownership of
a file or directory
⚬ chown [user:group] [filename]
⚬ chown -R [user:group] [directoryname]
chown - Change
Ownership
Init
• Stands for Initialization
• The first process started during the booting of the
computer system
• daemon process that continues running until the
system is shutdown
• A direct or indirect ancestor of all other processes
• automatically adopts all orphaned processes
• PID or Process ID is 1
• create processes from a script stored in /etc/inittab
⚬ configuration file used by initialization system
⚬ last step of kernel boot sequence
Init

• Init script initializes the service

• responsible for initializing the system
• init scripts are also called rc scripts (run command
scripts)
• Also used in UNIX
Init - services
• Start a service
⚬ service [service-name] start
• Stop a service
⚬ service [service-name] stop
• restart a service
⚬ service [service-name] restart
• reload a service
⚬ service [service-name] reload
• service status
⚬ service [service-name] status
Init - services
• Restart service if already running
⚬ service [service-name] condrestart
• enable service at startup
⚬ chkconfig [service-name] on
• disable service at startup
⚬ chkconfig [service-name] off
• check if service is enabled at startup
⚬ chkconfig [service-name]
• create new service file or modify configuration
⚬ chkconfig [service-name] add
Run-levels

• State of init
• group of processes are defined to start at the startup
of OS
• Mode of operation in the computer operating system
• Each run level has a certain number of services
started or stopped
Run-levels
• Seven Run levels exist ($ runlevel digit or $ init digit)
⚬ 0: Shuts down the system
⚬ 1: single-user mode
⚬ 2: multi-user mode without networking
⚬ 3: multi-user mode with networking (with CLI)
⚬ 4: user-definable
⚬ 5: multi-user mode with networking (with GUI)
⚬ 6: reboots the system to restart it
Run-levels
• By default, Linux based systems boot on runlevel 3 or
5
• user can modify preset runlevels
• create new ones according to the requirements
• Runlevel 2 and 4 are used for user defined runlevels
• runlevel 0 and 6 aur used for shutdown and reboot
the system
Systemd
• Systemd is the new init framework
• system and service manager for Linux operating
systems
• new distros are moving to systemd
• managing services with systemd
⚬ systemctl: control system and services
⚬ journalctl: manage journal, systemd's logging
system
⚬ hostnamectl: control hostname
⚬ localectl: configure locale and keyboard layout
⚬ timedatectl: set time and date
⚬ systemd-cgls: shows cgroup contents
Systemd - services
• see all services (running or not)
⚬ systemctl list-units --type service --all
• Start a service
⚬ systemctl start [service-name]
• Stop a service
⚬ systemctl stop [service-name]
• restart a service
⚬ systemctl restart [service-name]
• reload a service
⚬ systemctl reload [service-name]
Systemd - services
• see service status
⚬ systemctl status [service-name]
• Restart a service if already running
⚬ systemctl condrestart [service-name]
• Enable service at startup
⚬ systemctl enable [service-name]
• Disable service at startup
⚬ systemctl disable [service-name]
• check if service is enable at start up
⚬ systemctl is-enabled [service-name]
Systemd - services
• create new serivce file or modify configuration
⚬ systemctl daemon-reload
• systemctl halt
• systemctl poweroff
• systemctl reboot