Adding Users

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Whether at home or at the office, it's handy--sometimes essential--for every user to have his or her own user account. That way, everyone can have their own storage space that no one else can access, and they can all tweak their desktops to their own personal likes or needs.

You can also create groups, and add users to them. Why? Say, for example, that several different users need to access the "/finance" directory on a certain computer. Just create the "finance" group, and add the authorized users to it. Set the permissions on the "/finance" directory so that only members of the finance group can access it. (We'll show you later how to set these permissions.)

It's possible to create user and group accounts from the command-line. But, Ubuntu Desktop also comes with a handy graphical utility that you may find easier to use.

Begin by opening the Users and Groups utility from the System menu.

The two accounts that you added for yourself during installation are already listed. To add a new user, click on the Add User button.

As a minimum, you'll need to enter information in the Basic Settings and Password sections. The Contact Information section is optional.

As you can see, there are two ways to create a password for the new user. You can either assign the user a password of your choosing, or let the Random Password feature generate a password for you. We recommend that you choose a password yourself, and then instruct the user to change it upon his first logon. While the Random Password feature would probably create a stronger password that's harder to crack, it would also create a password that's harder for the user to remember.

Here's a neat feature. In the Basic Settings section, you can assign a profile to the new user. This gives you a quick way to determine what privileges a new user will have.

The Contact Information tab holds fields for just that.

If you don't like the privileges that a new user is assigned by these profiles, you can change them by clicking on the User Privileges tab.

The Home Directory, Shell, and User ID settings will automatically get filled in for you. Your best bet is to leave them at their default settings.

Click on the drop-down Main Group menu to assign the user to a group.

The Manage Groups button gives you a way to add and delete groups. It also gives you another way to assign members to a group.

Clicking on the Manage Groups button will bring up the Groups Settings dialog.

Highlight the group that you want to add members to, and then click on the Properties button.

Put a check mark by the names of the users that you want to add to the group. Click on the OK button to save your settings.

You can add groups for special purposes. Click on the Add Groups button to begin.

Let's say that you want to create a group for members of lab users study group. Enter the name of the group, but leave the Group ID at its default setting. Choose your group members and press OK.