Questions tagged [users]

For questions related to users, user accounts, user permissions or guest accounts.

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73 votes
6 answers
217k views

Move home folder to second drive

I have 2 HDD drives in my computer. At the moment second drive is mounted as /media/storage. How can I move my user data from /home to /media/storage/home? Can I just move the data over there and ...
Stann's user avatar
  • 15.1k
162 votes
5 answers
1.1m views

How to enable root login?

I would like to enable the root account on my Ubuntu installation. I realize the security implications of this.
Lincity's user avatar
  • 25.4k
222 votes
22 answers
167k views

Why is it bad to log in as root?

I've often come across posts on forums or other websites where you see people joking in such a manner about running/logging in as root as if it's something awful and everyone ought to know about it. ...
Mussnoon's user avatar
  • 5,046
98 votes
5 answers
431k views

How to manage users and groups using GUI?

Just switched from 10.04 to 11.10. I'm wondering about the limited options in the GUI for managing users and groups. Where is the old GUI to change groups, id's, etc. I know that I can do this from ...
ehde's user avatar
  • 1,055
850 votes
8 answers
1.5m views

How to add existing user to an existing group?

I want to add the Apache user (www-data) to the audio group. I've read the man page for useradd, but I'm not having any luck. I'm running xubuntu 11.10. Here's what I'm doing: $ sudo useradd -G audio ...
Sparky1's user avatar
  • 12.4k
249 votes
12 answers
1.7m views

How do I kill processes in Ubuntu?

How do I kill all processes running by my own non-root account? I have some spinning smbd processes that I caused from my windows machine and so I telnetted into the linux server and I want to kill ...
djangofan's user avatar
  • 3,714
42 votes
4 answers
78k views

Simple & easy way to jail users

I need a simple and easy way to jail users in their home directories in Oneiric. Do you have a simple configuration for jailing users, with full help, or some good web links? I would be offering an ...
One Zero's user avatar
  • 27.1k
129 votes
6 answers
547k views

Can I set my user account to have no password?

If I attempt to change my password to nothing by opening "User Accounts", the "Change" button remains greyed out: How do I change my password to be empty? I know you can set Ubuntu to automatically ...
Flimm's user avatar
  • 41.7k
49 votes
6 answers
191k views

Change owner of internal hard drive partition from root to user

I have a number of drives internal and external. Some are partitioned. Most mount automatically at boot (all did at one point). One partition is owned by root and therefore does not mount ...
Charles Kane's user avatar
44 votes
5 answers
49k views

How to NOT become a root user? Are administrators root?

I installed Ubuntu on my PC. To log in, I use the username and password I created during installation. Does this mean I am a root user? If yes, then how do I become non-root? It looks like non-root ...
FirstName LastName's user avatar
56 votes
7 answers
46k views

Why can other users see the files in my home folder?

I just added a new, underprivileged "desktop user," and I was surprised to discover that it can see the files in my home folder. What is the rational for setting up such lax permissions?
ændrük's user avatar
  • 76.7k
40 votes
2 answers
97k views

Default groups for user in Ubuntu?

Installed HP Linux Imaging and Printing by using install script and something crashed. Now I'm only member of my own group and lp. Which are the default groups for users in for example Ubuntu 12.10? ...
Runium's user avatar
  • 1,623
13 votes
2 answers
26k views

How can I restrict program access to other users?

I'm setting up a new user account, and I want to allow access to only certain programs for just that account. How would I go around doing that?
Lyrositor's user avatar
  • 1,018
239 votes
5 answers
575k views

How can I retrospectively create a default home directory for an existing user in terminal?

I created a user without a home directory and now I want to create a home directory for them. Not just a folder called /home/new-user, but a complete default home directory with all the normal folders ...
Jo Rijo's user avatar
  • 2,525
96 votes
9 answers
206k views

How to change default user in WSL Ubuntu bash on Windows 10

I installed the WSL Bash on Windows 10 and set my user to e.g. 'abc' but now I want to change it to something else. How can I change the user name of the user I'm logged in as? When I open bash it ...
mlevit's user avatar
  • 1,069
150 votes
4 answers
314k views

How to remove a user from a group?

I added a user account to the admin group and discovered I added wrong user. So I now have to remove the account from the admin group. How can I remove an account from a group without deleting the ...
Eonil's user avatar
  • 2,051
141 votes
12 answers
333k views

Home directory not being created

I am trying to understand system administration on Ubuntu. So, as an example, I create a dummy user using sudo useradd -d /home/linda linda and passwd to create the password. I check that an entry ...
tchakravarty's user avatar
  • 1,667
22 votes
5 answers
23k views

I deleted the "/etc/passwd" file and cannot log in

I was trying to change my username and also my home directory (/home/username) and my system started to crash. I deleted the passwd file but I had a backup named passwd_bkp. I tried to rename this ...
joao rodrigo leao's user avatar
134 votes
6 answers
222k views

What is the purpose of the 'nobody' user?

After I read List all human users I noticed that there is a user account named 'nobody' in my Ubuntu system. Also I noticed that I can login in this account from terminal using the following command ...
Radu Rădeanu's user avatar
89 votes
6 answers
287k views

How to make user home folder after account creation? [duplicate]

I created a new user with useradd name and forgot to use -d -m to create their home directory. I tried making one, copying the contents of /etc/skel, and chowning everything to the new user. ...
mortona42's user avatar
  • 991
41 votes
6 answers
126k views

How can I prevent users accessing anything but their own home directory?

How can I prevent users accessing anything but their own home directory? For example, I have a NTFS partition mounted under /media/ntfs, so if the user logs in through ssh he can reach this partition....
Mokus's user avatar
  • 4,502
35 votes
3 answers
94k views

Share a Folder between two Local Users

I and my brother have User Accounts on this machine. I want to share the Documents directory with him. Is there a STRAIGHTFORWARD way to do it? I am not a power user so I am looking for a way to do ...
ArunMKumar's user avatar
16 votes
2 answers
18k views

How do I set up new users with skel

i have on my server a settings i use for all my users. every time i create a new user i have to copy all the settings over and over. for example: .vimrc. .profile .bashrc firefox homepage to our ...
aki's user avatar
  • 2,114
10 votes
4 answers
6k views

Why there are many guest accounts on my system?

After I saw this answer, I realized that there are many guest accounts on my system: grep guest /etc/passwd guest-jzXeRx:x:117:127:Guest,,,:/tmp/guest-jzXeRx:/bin/false guest-l5dAPU:x:118:128:Guest,,,...
Radu Rădeanu's user avatar
8 votes
1 answer
16k views

How do I give multiple users access to a Windows NTFS partition?

I have USB hard-drive connected to my Ubuntu (11.04) machine. Every time I reboot the computer and login it mounts the hard-drive. Since the disk has NTFS on it, Linux assigns some user to be the ...
Alexander Sandler's user avatar
8 votes
6 answers
9k views

Import users from CSV file

Is it possible to import users by using CSV file? or something like a LDAP connection to import all users?
Driekus's user avatar
  • 113
113 votes
6 answers
301k views

How to add a user without /home?

I want to create a new user to run a service on the system but don't want to have /home and other configuration files for it. Like there is a user for postgres but it doesn't have any /home directory.
Owais Lone's user avatar
  • 7,372
65 votes
5 answers
174k views

How to enable or disable a user?

I'm uing ubuntu 12.04 desktop. I have 3 users: user1(administrator), user2(standard) and guest. I wanted to disable user1 and enable user2 which auto logs on with no password but after I did that I ...
user150330's user avatar
20 votes
5 answers
91k views

Proper way to add a user account via bash script

Here's the script code I'm using now: getent group $MYGROUP if [ $? -ne 0 ] ; then sudo su -c "groupadd $MYGROUP" fi sudo su -c "useradd mynewuser -p mypassword -m -g $PRIMARYGRP -G $MYGROUP" ...
MountainX's user avatar
  • 5,809
12 votes
3 answers
11k views

How do I change the guest session defaults

I have a quite tunned up gnome desktop and I would like for the guest session to share most of the user settings, this includes: Gtk and Metacity themes. Number of panels, placement and applets. ...
tutuca's user avatar
  • 2,672
11 votes
5 answers
13k views

Why does Ubuntu force users to create a password upon installation?

There's been one problem I've had since I installed Ubuntu to run alongside Windows, I assume this would also be the same if it was installed to replace the other operating system as well, the ...
Davin Ockerby's user avatar
6 votes
3 answers
11k views

Unity greeter background not changing for users automatically after upgrade

I have recently upgraded from 11.10 to 12.04. Normal upgrade, no new installation. In 11.10 I was using Simple LightDM Manager tool to set a custom wallpaper on the login screen. This tool ...
bioShark's user avatar
  • 4,251
5 votes
2 answers
14k views

Change user password while password is empty [duplicate]

I have a realy strange problem in Ubuntu 11.10. I have by accident my password set to empty. If I wan't to install software now the system asks for a password, but I haven't one anymore. If I enter my ...
Wietse de Vries's user avatar
2 votes
4 answers
11k views

How to permanently disable user switching in Gnome 3?

I have six boys, and they tend to ask another parent when wanting to use one of the computers, but don't bother asking the logged in user if they're finished. All four machines are running Ubuntu 12....
Daniel's user avatar
  • 21
58 votes
6 answers
353k views

How to add users to vboxusers to enable USB usage

I want to use my flashdrive in Windows XP, which I am currently running in Virtualbox, but when I open up the settings to enable usb usage, I get an error: Failed to access the USB subsystem. ...
GingerHunter797's user avatar
38 votes
4 answers
35k views

What are the disadvantages of having a dot in a user name?

A student just asked what could be the downside of having a dot (. ) in the name of the user. For example: john.doe How will this affect the system or any apps for that matter?
Luis Alvarado's user avatar
34 votes
1 answer
128k views

Properly modify home dir

I would like to know, whow to modify properly the homedir of a user. I already know about this command usermod -d /home/peter peter But now, do I have to create the homedir before? And what will ...
Peter's user avatar
  • 527
33 votes
1 answer
70k views

Can you unencrypt / remove encryption from a user home folder? [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: How to stop using built-in home directory encryption? During installation I have chosen to encrypt my user's home folder. Can I un-encrypt it? How would I do that? I just ...
Bruno Pereira's user avatar
16 votes
6 answers
26k views

Ubuntu 20.04 user not listed to login

I recently upgraded to Ubuntu 20.04 and today, after turning on my computer, by default, Ubuntu showed that welcome screen where you create your user and whatever. I thought my OS crashed because it ...
João Vitor's user avatar
15 votes
3 answers
2k views

Two accounts on same computer - how can I make a share folder for both?

I need a shared folder. My wife and I need to exchange files on the same computer. How can we do that?
vrcmr's user avatar
  • 6,307
4 votes
1 answer
4k views

Lost supplementary user groups for GUI login session

Ubuntu 16.04.5 Very weird situation - after Xorg crash, now every time when I login into Unity, my user account doesn't have it's system groups like adm, sudo, plugdev, fuse etc. But when I login on ...
Dima Chumak's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
431 views

Why such long list of users and groups in my system?

On my laptop $ cat /etc/passwd | wc -l results 42! And cat /etc/group | wc -l results 70!! The only user of my laptop is myself and there is only an extra user named "guest". But why such large ...
PHP Learner's user avatar
  • 2,788
0 votes
2 answers
3k views

What is the root user?

If you use sudo su - or sudo -s you will have full root privileges. Is this root user an official user or is it from Canonical? ~$ sudo su - [sudo] password for username: root@lp:~# id uid=0(root) ...
hwez's user avatar
  • 2,976
94 votes
2 answers
329k views

What is the www-data user?

I'm working through How To Serve Django Applications with uWSGI and Nginx on Ubuntu 16.04. At the end of the "Create a systemd Unit File for uWSGI" in the article they discuss the www-data user. What ...
user1592380's user avatar
  • 1,865
64 votes
4 answers
212k views

Renaming user name [duplicate]

I made a mistake in the username at the time of installation. So I changed the name of the user after logging in by creating a guest account with SUDO rights. But when I checked the list of users ...
Bala Jagannathan S's user avatar
41 votes
9 answers
91k views

Unknown user in statoverride file

I had an application installed on my htpc running ubuntu server called mediatomb, a few months ago I uninstalled it and replaced it with a Plex install. At the weekend when querying existing users on ...
Aesir's user avatar
  • 855
31 votes
8 answers
32k views

List all human users

How can I list all human users that I've created? I've tried cat /etc/passwd and it just lists a lot of stuff.
anatoly techtonik's user avatar
22 votes
3 answers
31k views

How to run multiple user X sessions on the same computer, at the same time?

I want to have more than one user logged on at the same time, on the same computer. Each user should have a full X session. It is easy enough to log in to multiple concurrent non-X Linux terminals, ...
Peter.O's user avatar
  • 24.7k
18 votes
3 answers
65k views

Disable sudo permission to user from command line

I have activated root user in ubuntu and want to use ubuntu as server with no DE. For this I want to disable sudo privilege given to first user. How can I do this from command line ? I know I can use ...
sagarchalise's user avatar
17 votes
2 answers
3k views

How to check which package created a user?

It is suspected that some packages have scripts run at install time which create user accounts in /etc/passwd. How can I check which package created a specific user?
Cyker's user avatar
  • 343

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