Unix for Advanced Users - Performing Light System Administration Tasks - Adding, modifying, disabling, or deleting user accounts

17. Performing Light System Administration Tasks

17.1. Adding, modifying, disabling, or deleting user accounts

Different "flavors" of Unix provide different tools or scripts to use when creating, deleting, or modifying user accounts. HP-UX uses SAM (System Administration Manager), IRIX has User Manager, Solaris provides the admintool and useradd utilities, while Linux provides linuxconf. These tools have made user administration simply a matter of entering information when prompted. These tools, however are not always going to be available to you. For this reason, it is a good idea to understand how a new account is created so that it can be done manually if necessary.

17.1.1. Creating an account

Edit the /etc/passwd file
Edit /etc/group
Create a home directory for the user
Copy the startup files into that home directory
Set an initial password for the account

17.1.2. Deleting an account

Removing the /etc/passwd entry
Removing the /etc/shadow entry
Removing the user's login name from groups in /etc/group
Deleting the home directory and startup files

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