24 Managing users with YaST #

Open the YaST User and Group Administration dialog and click the Users tab.

With Set Filter define the set of users you want to manage. The dialog lists users in the system and the groups the users belong to.

To modify options for an existing user, select an entry and click Edit.

To create a new user account, click Add.

Enter the appropriate user data on the first tab, such as Username (which is used for login) and Password. This data is sufficient to create a new user. If you click OK now, the system will automatically assign a user ID and set all other values according to the default.

Activate Receive System Mail if you want any kind of system notifications 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 first log in as root.

The mails sent by system services are stored in the local mailbox /var/spool/mail/USERNAME, where USERNAME is the login name of the selected user. To read e-mails, you can use the mail command.

To adjust further details such as the user ID or the path to the user's home directory, do so on the Details 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 Move to New Location. 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 Password Settings and adjust the options. For more details, refer to Section 24.3.2, “Enforcing password policies”.

If all options are set according to your wishes, click OK.

Click OK 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.

Alternatively, to save all changes without exiting the User and Group Administration dialog, click Expert Options › Write Changes Now.

Open the YaST User and Group Administration dialog and click the Users tab.

To temporarily disable a user account without deleting it, select the user from the list and click Edit. Activate Disable User Login. 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 Delete. Choose if you also want to delete the user's home directory or to retain the data.

Open the YaST User and Group Administration dialog and select the Defaults for New Users tab.

To change the primary group the new users should automatically belong to, select another group from Default Group.

To modify the secondary groups for new users, add or change groups in Secondary Groups. The group names must be separated by commas.

If you do not want to use /home/USERNAME as default path for new users' home directories, modify the Path Prefix for Home Directory.

To change the default permission modes for newly created home directories, adjust the umask value in Umask for Home Directory. For more information about umask, refer to Chapter 19, Access control lists in Linux and to the umask man page.

For information about the individual options, click Help.

Apply your changes with OK.

Open the YaST User and Group Administration dialog and click the Users tab. It lists users and the groups the users belong to.

Click Edit and switch to the Details tab.

To change the primary group the user belongs to, click Default Group and select the group from the list.

To assign the user additional secondary groups, activate the corresponding check boxes in the Additional Groups list.

Click OK to apply your changes.

Click OK to close the administration dialog and save the changes.

Alternatively, to save all changes without exiting the User and Group Administration dialog, click Expert Options › Write Changes Now.

Open the YaST User and Group Management dialog and click the Groups tab.

With Set Filter define the set of groups you want to manage. The dialog lists groups in the system.

To create a new group, click Add.

To modify an existing group, select the group and click Edit.

In the following dialog, enter or change the data. The list on the right shows an overview of all available users and system users which can be members of the group.

To add existing users to a new group select them from the list of possible Group Members by checking the corresponding box. To remove them from the group deactivate the box.

Click OK to apply your changes.

Click OK to close the administration dialog and save the changes.

Alternatively, to save all changes without exiting the User and Group Administration dialog, click Expert Options › Write Changes Now.

Open the User and Group Administration dialog in YaST.

Click the Authentication Settings tab to show an overview of the available authentication methods and the current settings.

To change the authentication method, click Configure and select the authentication method you want to modify. This takes you directly to the client configuration modules in YaST. For information about the configuration of the appropriate client, refer to the following sections:

NIS: Section 3.2, “Configuring NIS clients”

LDAP: Section 4.1, “Configuring an authentication client with YaST”

Samba: Section 20.5.1, “Configuring a Samba client with YaST”

SSSD: Section 4.2, “SSSD”

After accepting the configuration, return to the User and Group Administration overview.

Click OK to close the administration dialog.