Managing Users and Groups with the Fedora/Mandrake User Manager

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Users can’t read each other’s e-mail or other private documents.

Users can’t alter each other’s files.

User can’t lock others out of the system by changing a shared password.

Users have separate home directories to keep their work in.

Privileges for programs and data files can be assigned to individuals.

This makes your work as a user administrator much quicker and easier.

Managing Users and Groups with the Fedora/Mandrake User Manager

In this section, we give you a tour of the Fedora/ Mandrake user manager. If you’re a SuSE user, skip ahead to the section, “Managing Users and Groups with the SuSE User Administrator.”

The user manager makes user and group management a snap. With just a few clicks, you can set up new users or temporary accounts, change passwords, and manage groups.

The user manager works from either the KDE Desktop or the GNOME desktop. If you’re running Fedora Linux, you can start the user manager by opening the main menu and choosing System Settings Users and Groups. If you’re running Mandrake Linux, start the user manager by opening the main menu and choosing System Configuration Other User Administration. In either case, enter the superuser password if you are prompted to do so.

The user manager then opens, as shown in Figure 40-1.

The user manager gives you all the access you need to add and modify groups and users. The easy-to-read user lists and intuitive dialogs make it a quick tool to get up and running with.

• Figure 40-1: The Fedora/Mandrake User Manager.

Adding new users

To add a user, follow these steps:

1. In the user manager, click the Add User icon on the toolbar.

The Create New User dialog opens, as shown in Figure 40-2.

• Figure 40-2: The Create New User dialog.

284 Technique 40: Taking Care of New (And Old) Users

2. Fill in the fields in the dialog appropriately:

User Name: This is the name that you’ll see next to the cursor when you log in to the shell (so make sure it’s polite).

Full Name: This name is for internal use. If you’re managing a large company, you may need to distinguish between your Bobs or Jennifers.

Password and Confirm Password: Enter a password and confirm the password in the next field. The password has to be at least six characters long, and it can be any combination of upperand lowercase letters, numbers, and characters.

Login Shell: The option you choose from this drop-down list determines which shell starts when the user opens a terminal window. bash is a good, friendly choice, but if the new user is a real macho-type programmer, he or she might want a more hearty shell like /bin/csh (designed to be friendly to C programmers — need we say more?).

Create Home Directory: This defaults to

/home/username for the user, but you can specify a different directory if you choose.

Create a Private Group for the User: Check this box if you want to create a new group.

Specify User ID Manually: Check this box if you want to choose the user ID rather than allow the system to manage the numbers. We don’t recommend that unless you have a really good reason. Linux knows best.

Never create a user with a UID of 0. The user manager won’t let you do it, but you can do it at the command line. User 0 is always root, and any user with a UID of 0 is also root (and has superuser privileges).

3. After you fill in the dialog, click OK to add the new user.

You’re finished!

Modifying user accounts

Users come and go — that’s the nature of business. If you’re responsible for many user accounts, you’ll need to change forgotten passwords and delete old accounts. The user manager’s graphical interface makes quick work of keeping up with the human resources department.

If you need to delete a user, the process is simple: Just select the user and click Delete on the toolbar.

When you click the Delete button, take note of the Delete User’s Home Directory option. Be sure that nothing important is in that directory before you click Yes.

To make changes to a user account, follow these steps:

1. Double-click a user name in the user manager.

The User Properties dialog appears, as shown in Figure 40-3. With the User Properties dialog, you can change the user account with just a few clicks.

•Figure 40-3: The User Properties dialog.

2.Adjust different settings on the four tabs, as follows:

Managing Users and Groups with the Fedora/Mandrake User Manager

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User Data: Use this tab to change the user’s password, home directory, or login shell.

If a user forgets a password, this is the place to go. The old password is masked, but you can enter a new password for the user in seconds.

Account Info: On this tab, check the Local Password Is Locked box to lock the user out of his or her account. Check the Enable Account Expiration option if you want the account to expire on a certain date, and then enter the expiration date.

Password Info: Use this tab to control changes to a user’s password. You can specify the number of days before a change is allowed, or the number of days before a change is required. You can also set up a warning date, warning the user that his or her password is about to expire, or specify the number of days before the account will be rendered inactive.

Expiring a password limits the amount of time that a hacker can use it. It also takes a fair amount of horsepower to crack a password, so if someone gets an encrypted version of your password file, odds are that the password will have changed by the time that the hacker decrypts it. Good password management is a real timesaver.

Groups: Use this tab to specify the groups to which a user belongs. You can also specify the user’s primary group here.

3.When you’ve finished making changes, click OK to save your work.

Adding groups

A group is a collection of users. Groups make it easy to manage file permissions. If you have several users that all need to access the same file, create a new group with those users in it.

The user manager makes it a breeze to create and modify groups. To add a group, follow these steps:

1. Open the Main Menu and choose System Settings Users and Groups.

2. Choose the Groups tab.

The currently defined groups are displayed, as shown in Figure 40-4.

• Figure 40-4: The Fedora/Mandrake user manager Groups tab.

3. Click the Add Group button on the toolbar.

The Create New Group dialog appears, as shown in Figure 40-5.

•Figure 40-5: The Create New Group dialog.

4.Specify a name in the Group Name field.

5.If you need to specify a group number, you can check the Specify Group ID Manually box, but we recommend accepting the default and letting Linux assign the group number to avoid potential conflict.