Add Users Howto

Information

This is out of date, the “User Accounts” app has changed in Ubuntu 11.10 and no longer has many functions.

When Ubuntu and/or Kubuntu are initially installed, a single user account was created. It is possible to create additional user logins on your system.

Options

There is more than one way to add a user, however this wiki page will briefly discuss the easiest and most common ways. The two ways shown are:

  1. Graphical
  2. Command-line – adduser

Command-line

To add a user you must use the sudo command (for an explanation of what that means, see the RootSudo page). Here are the commands:

To add a user. NOTE: do not use the useradd command.

To see the options for adding a user try the man command.

Here is a useful example of the useradd command. Why use useradd? It gives a few more options for special cases. To add a user, give her a standard home directory in the /home folder and specify the shell she accesses by default do this:

Groups

You might also wish to create a new group for your users.

To add a new user to a existing group you would do this:

To add an existing user to an existing group you can use the same command:

or

Ref: help.ubuntu.com