Create user on linux ubuntu

How to Create User on Ubuntu Linux in Multiple Ways

Do you need to give someone access to your Ubuntu desktop temporarily? Or do you manage an Ubuntu server, and you must create a user account for a new team member? Whatever the reason, there are multiple ways to create user on Ubuntu.

This tutorial will walk you through the different ways to create a user on Ubuntu Linux through the graphical user interface and the command line.

Prerequisites

This tutorial will be a hands-on demonstration. If you’d like to follow along, be sure you have an Ubuntu system set up. This guide uses Ubuntu 20.04, but the commands and procedures should work on any recent version of Ubuntu.

Creating a User from the GUI

If you’re Ubuntu has a desktop environment and prefers to do things from the GUI, then this section is for you. Creating a user in the GUI has minimal options and is limited to setting the name, username, user type, and password.

To add a user using the GUI, follow these steps. This example depicts using the GNOME shell, the default desktop environment.

1. On your Ubuntu desktop, press the Super key (❖) on your keyboard or click the Show applications button.

2. Type Settings into the search bar and click on the setting icon that appears.

3. Click Users → Unlock → enter your password → Authenticate to unlock the Users settings.

4. After unlocking the Users settings, click the Add User button on the top of the window.

5. Provide the following information about the user you are creating. When satisfied with the new user details, click the Add button on the top right.

• Account type: Choose whether the new user account will be a Standard or Administrator account. A standard user has limited access to the system, while an administrator has full access.

• Full name: The user’s full name.

• Username: The new account’s username.

• Password: Choose whether to Allow user to set a password when the next login or Set a password now. If you choose the latter, enter the new password into the Password and Confirm boxes.

The screenshot below shows an example of creating a standard user whose username is gui_user and setting the password now.

6. Click the new user account to display its properties. As you can see below, this page is where you can modify the user’s account settings, such as:

b. Switching the account type to an Administrator or Standard.

c. Changing the preferred Language.

e. Enabling or disabling automatic login (require or do not require a password to log in).

f. Viewing the account activity logs (login times and sessions).

g. Removing the user account.

Creating a User from the Command Line

While creating a user using the graphical user interface may be convenient and intuitive, the options are limited. Conversely, creating a new user from the command line gives you more control and options for provisioning.

Why create users in the command line?

• The Ubuntu computer does not have a desktop environment, especially on servers.

• Creating a user account with more options not available in the GUI.

• Opportunity for automation like bulk user creation or user account provisioning workflow.

With a Default Home Directory Path

To create a user using the command line, follow these steps:

1. On a desktop environment, press CTRL+ALT+T to open a terminal window. On a non-desktop environment, log in to Ubuntu using your preferred SSH client.

2. Creating a user account is a privileged operation that requires elevation. To avoid running each command with sudo at the beginning, switch to the root shell now.

3. Run the following command to add a standard user named cli_user1. Specify a different username as you wish. The -m flag tells the system to create a home directory for the user. By default, the home directory path is /home/ where is the new account’s username.

# Create a standard user account useradd -m cli_user1

Alternatively, to create the new user as an administrator, specify the -G sudo option. The -G option means you’re adding the new user as a member of the sudo group.

# Create an administrator user account useradd -m cli_user1 -G sudo

4. At this point, you should have a new user account with a home directory in the default location. Run the command below to list the new user’s home directory.

The below screenshot shows the default files the system creates for new accounts.

With a Custom Home Directory Path

The default home directory for new user accounts is at /home/ . Should you need to create a new user with a custom home directory, you can do so by specifying the -d or —home-dir option. Both options are the same and interchangeable.

Run the following command to create a user named tmp_user with a home directory under /tmp/home .

# Create the user with a custom home directory useradd -m -d /tmp/tmp_user tmp_user # List the custom home directory ls -la /tmp/tmp_user 

Note: The custom home directory parent must already exist before creating the user account. For example, if the custom home directory path is /tmp/tmp_user, then the parent directory /tmp must already exist.

With a Specific User Identifier ID (UID)

By default, the system generates a random user identifier (UID) number for each new user. But some instances may require assigning a pre-defined UID, such as migrating users from another system or cloning application settings that rely on specific UIDs.

To create a new user and specify a UID, you must activate the -u flag followed by the UID.

Verify the new user’s UID by running the id command, which prints out information about the current user, including the UID.

The output will look something like the one below. You can see that the UID ****for the user is 1234 , which is what you specified.

If the UID is unavailable, useradd will return an error: “UID is not unique”.

With an Expiration Date

In some cases, you may want to create a user that will only have temporary access to the system. After that specific duration, the user can no longer log on to the system.

This approach applies in situations like when someone’s helping you with a project, and they only access within specific dates. Linux provides a way to do this by setting an expiry date for a user account using the -e flag followed by the date. The date value must be in the format of YYYY-MM-DD.

For example, run the below command to create a user on Ubuntu named temp_user with a specific expiration date of June 30, 2022.

useradd -e 2020-06-30 temp_user 

Verify the new user by running the chage command with the -l flag. The chage command displays information about when a user’s password will expire.

You will see an output similar to the one below. You can see that the Account expires field value is June 30, 2022.

Setting the New User Password

Each time you create a user account using the previous steps, the new user does not have a password. As such, the new user cannot log in to the system.

1. To set the new account password, run the passwd command like so.

2. Type in and confirm the new password. If the passwords match, you should see a message saying the password updated successfully.

3. Confirm that the account works by switching to the new user account with the su command. Make sure to enter the new user’s password at the prompt.

# Exit the root shell exit # Switch to the new user account su - cli_user1 # Show the current user account whoami

The image below shows the successful login to the new user account.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, you’ve learned how to create a user on Ubuntu using the GUI and command line, so you may choose which method you prefer. Creating a user in the GUI is the most convenient but has limited options while creating a user in the terminal offers more control and flexibility.

With your newfound knowledge, do you feel confident creating users in the GUI or the CLI? Which method do you prefer? Also, would you be willing to automate user access provisioning in your Linux systems using these techniques?

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Add a new user account

You can add multiple user accounts to your computer. Give one account to each person in your household or company. Every user has their own home folder, documents, and settings.

You need administrator privileges to add user accounts.

1. Open the Activities overview and start typing Users .
2. Click on Users to open the panel.
3. Press Unlock in the top right corner and type in your password when prompted.
4. Press the + Add User. button under Other Users to add a new user account.
5. If you want the new user to have administrative access to the computer, select Administrator for the account type. Administrators can do things like add and delete users, install software and drivers, and change the date and time.
6. Enter the new user’s full name. The username will be filled in automatically based on the full name. If you do not like the proposed username, you can change it.
7. You can choose to set a password for the new user, or let them set it themselves on their first login. If you choose to set the password now, you can press the icon to automatically generate a random password. To connect the user to a network domain, click Enterprise Login .
8. Click Add . When the user has been added, Parental Controls and Language settings can be adjusted.

If you want to change the password after creating the account, select the account, Unlock the panel and press the current password status.

In the Users panel, you can click the image next to the user’s name to the right to set an image for the account. This image will be shown in the login window. The system provides some stock photos you can use, or you can select your own or take a picture with your webcam.

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How To Create a New Sudo-enabled User on Ubuntu 20.04 [Quickstart]

When managing a server, you’ll sometimes want to allow users to execute commands as “root,” the administrator-level user. The sudo command provides system administrators with a way to grant administrator privileges — ordinarily only available to the root user — to normal users.

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a new user with sudo access on Ubuntu 20.04 without having to modify your server’s /etc/sudoers file.

Note: If you want to configure sudo for an existing user, skip to step 3.

Step 1 — Logging Into Your Server

SSH in to your server as the root user:

Step 2 — Adding a New User to the System

Use the adduser command to add a new user to your system:

Be sure to replace sammy with the username that you want to create. You will be prompted to create and verify a password for the user:

Output
Enter new UNIX password: Retype new UNIX password: passwd: password updated successfully 

Next, you’ll be asked to fill in some information about the new user. It is fine to accept the defaults and leave this information blank:

Output
Changing the user information for sammy Enter the new value, or press ENTER for the default Full Name []: Room Number []: Work Phone []: Home Phone []: Other []: Is the information correct? [Y/n] 

Step 3 — Adding the User to the sudo Group

Use the usermod command to add the user to the sudo group:

Again, be sure to replace sammy with the username you just added. By default on Ubuntu, all members of the sudo group have full sudo privileges.

Step 4 — Testing sudo Access

To test that the new sudo permissions are working, first use the su command to switch to the new user account:

As the new user, verify that you can use sudo by prepending sudo to the command that you want to run with superuser privileges:

For example, you can list the contents of the /root directory, which is normally only accessible to the root user:

The first time you use sudo in a session, you will be prompted for the password of that user’s account. Enter the password to proceed:

Output:
[sudo] password for sammy: 

Note: This is not asking for the root password! Enter the password of the sudo-enabled user you just created.

If your user is in the proper group and you entered the password correctly, the command that you issued with sudo will run with root privileges.

Conclusion

In this quickstart tutorial, we created a new user account and added it to the sudo group to enable sudo access.

For your new user to be granted external access, please follow our section on Enabling External Access for Your Regular User.

If you need more detailed information on setting up an Ubuntu 20.04 server, please read our Initial Server Setup with Ubuntu 20.04 tutorial.

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