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Labs

Managing User and Group Accounts

The ability to manage user accounts and group membership is a crucial tool in any system administrator's box. In this hands-on lab, we will work with commands like `useradd`, `passwd`, `usermod`, `groupadd`, `groupmod` and `groupdel`. By the time we're done, we will have a good grasp on how to use these tools for managing user accounts and groups on any Linux system.

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Lab platform
Lab Info
Level
Intermediate
Last updated
Sep 23, 2025
Duration
30m

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Table of Contents
  1. Challenge

    Create a tester Group in the Reserved Range

    Use the groupadd command with the -r option to create the group testers:

    groupadd -r tester
    
  2. Challenge

    Add the test1 User and Make Them a Member of the tester Group. Lock and unlock the test1 User, and Force them to Change their Password

    Use the command useradd with the -G option to spection the tester group:

    useradd -G tester test1
    

    Set a temporary password (that the user will have to change the first time they log in):

    echo Temp@$$ | passwd --stdin test1
    

    We could also set one manually by just running passwd test1 and typing/confirming a password by hand.

    Lock and unlock the account using the usermod command.

    usermod -L test1
    tail -n1 /etc/passwd /etc/shadow
    usermod -U test1
    

    We can run tail -n1 /etc/passwd /etc/shadow to see if it got set.

    And to make test1 change their password on the next login, run:

    chage -d0 test1
    

    Verify the account and groups using the id command.

    id test1
    
  3. Challenge

    Modify cloud_user to Add Secondary Membership in tester Group

    Use the usermod command with the -aG options to add cloud_user to the tester group:

    usermod -aG tester cloud_user
    

    We can run id cloud_user to check our work and see if the user is in the group now.

  4. Challenge

    Create the /usr/local/test_scripts Directory Owned by cloud_user and Set GID Permission for the testers Group with No Access to Others

    Create the directory:

    mkdir /usr/local/test_scripts
    

    Make sure it's owned by cloud_user, and the tester group:

    chown cloud_user:tester /usr/local/test_scripts
    

    Give the group write permissions, and revoke any permissions from anyone else:

    chmod g+ws,o-rx /usr/local/test_scripts
    

    As a best practice, verify your work. Become the new user, get into the new directory, and create a couple things to look at:

    su - test1
    cd /usr/local/test_scripts
    mkdir dir1
    touch file1
    ls -l
    
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