5.2 Managing User Accounts
YaST offers to create, modify, delete or temporarily disable user
accounts. Do not modify user accounts unless you are an experienced user
or administrator and know about the implications.
NOTE: Changing User IDs of Existing Users
File ownership is bound to the user ID, not to the user name. After a
user ID change, the files in the user's home directory are automatically
adjusted to reflect this change. However, after an ID change, the user
does no longer own the files he created elsewhere in the file system
unless you manually change the file ownership for those files.
In the following, learn how to set up default user accounts. For some
further options, such as auto login, login without password, setting up
encrypted home directories or managing quotas for users and groups, refer
to Section 5.3.5, Managing Quotas.
Adding or Modifying User Accounts
-
Open the YaST dialog
and click the tab.
-
With define the set of users you want to
manage. The dialog shows a list of users in the system and the groups
the users belong to.
-
To modify options for an existing user, select an entry and click
.
To create a new user account, click .
-
Enter the appropriate user data on the first tab, such as
(which is used for login) and
. This data is sufficient to create a new
user. If you click now, the system will
automatically assign a user ID and set all other values according to
the default.
-
Activate if you want any kind of
system mails to be delivered to this user's mailbox. This creates a
mail alias for root and the user can read the system mail without
having to log in as root first.
-
If you want to adjust further details such as the user ID or the path
to the user's home directory, do so on the
tab.
If you need to relocate the home directory of an existing user, enter
the path to the new home directory there and move the contents of the
current home directory with .
Otherwise, a new home directory is created without any of the existing
data.
-
To force users to regularly change their password or set other password
options, switch to and adjust the
options.
-
If all options are set according to your wishes, click
.
-
Click to save all changes without exiting
the dialog. Or click
to close the administration dialog and to
save the changes. A newly added user can now log in to the system using
the login name and password you created.
HINT: Matching User IDs
For a new (local) user on a laptop which should also integrate in a
network environment where this user already has a user ID, it is useful
to match the (local) user ID to the ID in the network. This ensures that
the file ownership of the files the user creates offline
is the same as if he created them directly on the network.
Disabling or Deleting User Accounts
-
Open the YaST dialog
and click the tab.
-
To temporarily disable a user account without deleting it, select the
user from the list and click . Activate
. The user cannot log in to your
machine until you enable the account again.
-
To delete a user account, select the user from the list and click
. Choose if you also want to delete the user's
home directory or if you want to retain the data.
