Docker : Adding Non Root Users To The Docker Group In CentOS

One of the most common task you have to do as a Linux administrator is to add a new user.  Especially developers who always wants root access. Docker needs root access, however the person who is administering Docker is probably not the system administrator.  Most likely it will be the application developer. To accomplish this task you can use the useradd command in the Terminal session then add the new user to the Docker group.  Follow the steps below to add a new user to CentOS.



1.  Switch into the root user using su - command








2. Type the following command useradd -s  /bin/bash -d /home/john -m john then press "Enter"





useradd is the command to add a new user to CentOS, below is an explaination of what each switch means in the command above

-s --shell SHELL - the login shell of the new account, which is the/bin/bash shell
-d --home-dir HOME_DIR - home directory of the new account, which is /home/john

3.  Type ls /home to list the content of the /home directory and you will see the john directory has been created for the user john





4.  We've created a new user name john, but he has no password, to set a password for john we can use the passwd command.  Type the following command to assign john a password passwd john  type in john's password when prompted with New Password:   and confirm the password when prompted with Retype new password:


5.  Even though john has a login, we still don't know what John's full name is to assign a real name to the login john we can use the usermod -c command to assign the login name john a real name





the command above usermod -c "John Wallace" john assigns the name John Wallace to the user name john

Now we can add john to the Docker group

6.  First we need to find out if the docker group has been created, type cat /etc/group to look at the list of groups













As you can see the docker group has been created

7,  To add john to the docker group type gpasswd -a john docker








Now you will see that john is a part of the docker group