How to Add New Users to Linux

Linux is an operating system with a tremendous amount of functionality for both casual users and adept computer wizards. Using any version of Linux, it's possible to manipulate the OS right down to the the overall layout of the GUI. It's also easy to serve as a system administrator and add or remove new users whenever you need.

Step1 Add a new user with the "adduser" command. The "user" command requires both the command itself as well as the name of the user account you wish to add. Thus you would type "adduser john" to create a user account named "john."

Step2 Note the root directory for all new user accounts are set to default to the "/home" directory. For example, using the "adduser john" command would default the "john" account to the "/home/john" directory.

Step3 Change a user's home directory using the "-d" command line parameter, followed by the new home directory. You could set the "john" account to the home directory /home/john_jane by typing "adduser -d/home/john_jane john."

Step4 Protect a user account with a password using the "-p" command line parameter. You will be prompted to retype the password once you've pressed "Enter," but type the password into the initial console command: "adduser -p1234 john" creates the user "john" who has a password of "1234."

Step5 Add a user to multiple groups in Linux using the "-g" and "-G" commands. The "-g" parameter is responsible for adding a user to her primary group, while the "-G" command adds the user to additional groups beyond the primary group. Commas should be used after each subsequent group to separate them on the command line ("-G exec,business,mgmt").

Step6 Provide comments within a user account to make them clearer to administrators. Comments are enabled using the "-c" command line parameter. Using more than one word in a comment requires the use of parentheses, while single words do not. For example, "adduser -c "John Smith" john" adds the comment "John Smith" to the user account and will be listed under the comments section of any user search.