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Linux CentOS In-Depth: Adding A New User With useradd and usermod Command

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. To accomplish this task you can use the useradd command in the Terminal session. 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