8.1 Users

The Debian commands to manage users are adduser and deluser, respectively.

To add a user funky to the system, use the following command:

adduser funky

The command prompts for additional information about the user, as well as an initial password.

The adduser command accomplishes several tasks. First, it adds an entry to the password file in the system. Next, it creates a skeletal ``home directory'' for the user. By default, Debian Linux set up a user home directory so that only the owner has access to its content. However, this may not be true for other distributions.

To remove a user, the Debian Linux command is deluser. For example, to delete the user funky, we can use the following command:

deluser funky

Note that the deluser command does not automatically erase the home directory of the delete user. Instead, it simply removes the user's entry from the main password file. This means the a deleted user cannot log into the system anymore. You can, however, supply additional options to erase the home directory of a user.



Copyright © 2006-07-31 by Tak Auyeung