How can I add a new user as sudoer?

Question

After I add a user using adduser, I can't see it via System->Administration->Users and Groups unless I logout then login again. Is that normal?

Also, can I set a newly added user as a sudoer or do I have to change that only after adding it? How can I do that via the shell?

Finally, can I delete the original user that was created upon initial installation of ubuntu, or is this user somehow 'special'?

Answer 1

Just add the user to the "Administer the system" (admin) group:

sudo adduser <username> admin

This works because /etc/sudoers is pre-configured to grant permissions to all members of this group (You should not have to make any changes to this):

# Members of the admin group may gain root privileges
%admin ALL=(ALL) ALL

You should be able to see the changes immediately in the Users Settings window.

As long as you have access to a user that is in the same groups as your "original" user, you can delete the old one.

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Realistically, there are also other groups your new user should be a member of. If you set the Account type of a user to Administrator in Users Settings, it will be placed in at least all of these groups:

adm dialout fax cdrom floppy tape dip video plugdev fuse lpadmin admin sambashare

Because your system configuration may vary, I suggest taking a look at Users Settings --> Advanced Settings to see what groups are normally in use.

Answer 2

All members of the group admin, are in Ubuntu by default allowed to use sudo, so the easiest way is to add the user account to the admin group.

If you do not want to give the user account full root access, you need to edit the /etc/sudoer file with visudo (it makes sure that you do not have any syntax errors in the file and lose sudo capability altogether) in a way that you specify what commands this user (or a new group) can execute as root.

The sudoer manual will give you more information about this. You can specify which commands are permitted by a particular user/group to be executed as root.

Answer 3

Open Sudoyers file

sudo visudo

will open the /etc/sudoyers file in GNU nano

if not try export EDITOR="nano" and try again sudo visudo

add the below line to the end of file

mithun ALL=(ALL) ALL

Then perform WriteOut witthe the CTRL+O

Editor will ask you for the file name to be written

default will be /etc/sudoers.tmp

File Name to Write: /etc/sudoers.tmp

Change that to /etc/sudoers

File Name to Write: /etc/sudoers

A prompt will be dispalyed

File exists, OVERWRITE ?

or

Save file under DIFFERENT NAME ?

In both cases, press Y

Quit the nono editor with CTRL+X

Done!

Answer 4

Ubuntu Forums Link | Add Sudoer

echo 'useraccount ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL' >> /etc/sudoers

You can type the above command with your user by sudo echo and the rest of the line as above.

Hope that Helps