Skill 1 in course 2.1: Users and Automation

Users, Groups and sudo

Create and manage local accounts and groups, enforce password policy, and grant privileged access the controlled way.

Intermediate4 lessons20 exercises2 h 45 min
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You will be able to

  • Create, modify, lock and delete local users with the right UID, home directory, shell and comment.
  • Set passwords non-interactively, force a change at first login, and apply password aging with chage.
  • Create and manage groups, tell primary from supplementary membership, and build a shared-access team.
  • Grant privileged access through wheel and sudoers drop-in files, with specific commands where full root is too much, and verify the rules.

Lessons

  1. 01Creating and managing local user accountsKnow what an account is on disk, then create, change, lock and remove users with useradd, usermod and userdel.useraddusermoduserdelidgetent/etc/passwd0/5 exercises
  2. 02Passwords, aging and account policySet and reset passwords, force changes, and apply aging rules per user and as system defaults.passwdchagepasswd --stdinchpasswd/etc/login.defs/etc/security/pwquality.conf0/5 exercises
  3. 03Groups and shared accessCreate groups, add users correctly, understand primary versus supplementary membership, and build a shared project directory.groupaddgroupmodgroupdelusermodgpasswdid0/5 exercises
  4. 04Privileged access with sudoGive people the root powers they need and no more: wheel, drop-in sudoers files, command lists and passwordless rules.sudovisudosudo -lsudo -uvisudo -c/etc/sudoers.d0/5 exercises