Posts Tagged ‘Quick way to add user to another user group in Linux’

Quick way to add user to another user group in Linux

Tuesday, June 29th, 2010

Here is how to add user to be a member of another user’s group in GNU/Linux.
Everytime I have to add user to a group I always try to remember for a few seconds how I did it last time.
Therefore I finally decided to blog it here that I possibly help to somebody out there and help myself easily look for it among the posts in case I forget sometime in the future:
There are two ways to add an user to a group.

1. Add user to a group directly editting /etc/groups

Let’s assume you are in need to add user test to the www-data groupHere is how:

linux-server:~# vim /etc/groups
Put in the file
www-data:x:33:test
Save the file and that should be enough, in the next login with user test you can observe the user is added to the www-data group
By typing the id command in the command line.


linux-server:~$ idid=1000(test) gid=1000(test)
groups=1125(test),1124(www-data)

2. Add user to another user group using the useradd and usermod commands

If you’re creating a brand new user to be membering a group use:

linux-server:~# useradd -G
linux-server:~# useradd -G www-data test
linux-server:~# passwd test

If for clarity you’d like to add an already existing user using a linux command consider using usermod

linux-server:~# usermod -a -G www-data test