How to add users to a system?

The command used to create a new user is called useradd.

Just by running useradd your_user a new user named your_user will be created, but you probably want to add some parameters. The options of the useradd command are:

• -m This will create a home directory in /home/your_user

• -G group_name will add the newly created user to the here specified groups (wheel is an often used group since it allows the user to use sudo)

• -s path/to/shell changes the default shell of the user. The available shells and their paths can be checked with cat /etc/shells. If the shell you want to use is not available it can be installed using the OSs package manager.

Modifying an existing user

In case you forgot to set something when creating the user, you can do that afterwards using the usermod command.

• -aG to add another group to a user

• -s to change the users default shell

For any additional options you might want to know you can always check the man pages using man usermod or any other command.