How to add new user in Linux

Linux administrators have few options when it comes to adding a new user to the system, from filling up forms in distribution / desktop environment specific nice GUIs, to running through the command line with options and switches. For the geeky administratorss, there are always configuration files that can manually be edited just for this purpose.

The 2 most common programs used to add a user are, adduser and useradd. They are both quite similar (heck, they do the same thing anyway, which is to add user of course), but are a bit different in their interactivity level.

You can new user in Linux from the command line using adduser or useradd and you can also add new user using GUI provided by Gnome or KDE.

• Add user in Linux using adduser
• Add user in Linux using useradd
• Add user in Linux using KDE
• Add user in Linux using Gnome

adduser is quite interactive, the only required parameter to be supplied to the program is the user name to be added while running the program. The rest of the process is a matter of filling up questionaires provided by the program, and a user is then created. The following example shows how to add the user noob to the system.

$ sudo adduser noob
Adding user `noob' ...
Adding new group `noob' (1003) ...
Adding new user `noob' (1003) with group `noob' ...
Creating home directory `/home/noob' ...
Copying files from `/etc/skel' ...
Enter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: password updated successfully
Changing the user information for noob
Enter the new value, or press ENTER for the default
        Full Name []: newbie
        Room Number []:
        Work Phone []:
        Home Phone []:
        Other []:
Is the information correct? [y/N] y

The only mandatory field to be filled up is just the password, and surely to also key in y at the end to confirm your action.

useradd is normally the preferred choice for non-interactive uses, and at minimum it also accepts only the username as parameter. The following is and example on how to add the user noob using useradd;

# useradd noob

and that’s just it. It is however pretty useless as it lack many things, and the following example should make it more useful;

# useradd -g users -G admin -s /bin/bash -d /home/noob -m noob

The command above will add the user noob with the primary group users, and also including the user to the group admin, setting the default shell to /bin/bash, define the home directory to be at /home/noob, and to create the home directory. Password is not yet set at this point, and the following step sets up the password;

# passwd noob
Enter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: password updated successfully

For the geeks and those with brave heart, you are free to edit the following files to change user informations, and even to add a user to the system.

• /etc/passwd – User account information.
• /etc/shadow – Secure user account information.
• /etc/group – Group account information.
• /etc/default/useradd – Default values for account creation.
• /etc/skel/ – Directory containing default files.