How To: Add A User¶
Occasionally, you'll need to add users to a server. This doc will help you create a user, give them admin permission, add a user's SSH key, and let them run docker commands.
Adduser¶
Once you're SSH'd into the correct server (If you do not know how to SSH, read this), run the following command:
You will be prompted to enter your password (As you are running this command with sudo, which is administrator privileges.)
You should then see the following output:
Adding user `[USERNAME]' ...
Adding new group `USERNAME' (1234) ...
Adding new user `USERNAME' (1234) with group `USERNAME' ...
Creating home directory `/home/USERNAME' ...
Copying files from `/etc/skel' ...
New password:
Set a simple password, with the following structure:
Day-Object-####
Replace the day with the Day of the week AND actual date, i.e. Saturday06, replace an the object with a random object in the room, such as Charger, and replace the hashtags with a 4 random numbers or letters.
The password will not appear as you type it!
Filling in Their Details¶
Enter their full name, i.e. Ruán Murgatroyd and leave the rest of the options blank (by just pressing enter.)
Then verify the information is correct and type Y.
Expiring Their Password¶
BEFORE YOU GIVE THE TEMPORARY PASSWORD TO THE USER
You need to set the password to expire on first log in, to do this, run the following:
It should output the following:
Adding an SSH Key¶
CS++ mandates SSH Key login for all committee. To make this possible, Sysadmins need to add their public key to the user.
To do this, run the following commands:
# Go to the User's home directory
cd /home/[USERNAME]/.ssh
# Create a new file called authorized_keys (Yes, with a 'z')
touch authorized_keys
Now, get the public key from the user, it should look something like this:
ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1GHDI1NTE5AAAAIFCSjHARHARGZFpRqFREdDyFaZBeaRhoATlk/+y01NKy bitflip@fun-machine
Copy that to your clipboard, go back to the terminal and run the following command:
# Add they key to the user's authorised keys
echo [PASTE_PUBLIC_KEY_HERE] > authorized_keys
Giving Admin to a User¶
In Linux, an administrator account is called a sudoer, as the commend you use to run something as an administrator is sudo.
Warning
This will give the user the ability to run ANY command with FULL permissions, only do this if you are CERTAIN you are adding the right person, and have permission to add them.
If you want to make a user a sudoer, you add them to the 'sudo group'!
To do this, run the following command:
You may be prompted to enter your password.
Letting a User Run Docker Commands¶
If you want to make it easier for a user to run Docker commands without having to preface it with sudo, you can add the user to the Docker group:
# Before adding them to the Docker group:
sudo docker images
# Adding them to the Docker Group:
sudo usermod -aG docker [USERNAME]
# Now they can do this:
docker images
Like giving sudo, only give this to people who should be allowed to run Docker commands!
Happy adding!