How can I add a new user as sudoer using the command line?

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 sudo group:

sudo adduser <username> sudo

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):

# Allow members of group sudo to execute any command
%sudo   ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

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 sudo lpadmin sambashare

Because your system configuration may vary, I suggest taking a look at the output of groups <username> to see what groups are normally in use.

Answer 2

Open Sudoers file

sudo visudo

will open the /etc/sudoers file in GNU nano

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

add the below line to the end of file

username ALL=(ALL) ALL change the user name before you issue the commands

Then perform WriteOut with the CTRL+O

Editor will ask you for the file name to write into

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 nano editor with CTRL+X

Done!

Answer 3

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 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