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System startup works as follows:
init
LILO stores the disk sector where the kernel can be found in the boot loader. Therefore
/boot
partition must be located before sector 1024 of the hard disk, otherwise LILO can't address it;
The main configuration file is /etc/lilo.conf
GRUB uses two stages:
/boot
(supported filesystems are e.g. ext2/3/4, reiserfs) the Linux kernel is startedcat /boot/grub/menu.lst # configuration file (with meta commands that control the behaviour of update-grub) cat /boot/grub/device.map # device mapping file cat /etc/grub.conf # options, parameters,.. update-grub # tool that parses and write menu.lst
Configuration:
cat /boot/grub/grub.cfg # generated configuration file (overwritten with update-grub, kernel-updates,..) cat /etc/default/grub # main configuration file ls /etc/grub.d # directory with additional configuration files cat /etc/grub.d/40_custom # custom entries that update-grub will put in grub.cfg
With the following commands GRUB2 is installed in two steps - (1) generate a grub.cfg, (2) install GRUB to the MBR. Step 1 must be invoked after each kernel update - otherwise the kernel will not show up as an option during boot.
update-grub # generate grub.cfg (searches for installed OSes) grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub.cfg # same as update-grub grub-install # install boot loader to MBR or partition
http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub.html https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2
Shared libraries are used by most programs to save disk space, RAM space and for faster startup times (when library was already loaded by another program). Only programs for minimal environments are statically linked to avoid dependencies.
ldd program # print required dynamic libraries of an executable cat /etc/sd.so.conf # search paths for ldconfig (/lib and /var/lib are implicit) cat /etc/sd.so.cache # cache with available dynamic libraries ldconfig # update sd.so.cache with libraries found in paths from sd.so.conf and $LD_LIBRARY_PATH
Linux has two clocks: hardware clock (aka BIOS clock) and a software clock (maintained by the Linux kernel). The software clock is initialized with the time of the hardware clock during boot time and written back to the hardware clock on shutdown. More details
The hardware clock can be read and set (by root only) with the hwclock
command. The parameters --utc
and --localtime
tell if the hardware clock is / should be set to UTC or local time.
Note, however, that hwclock always prints and expects (when setting) date in local time.
hwclock (--show) # show current setting hwclock --systohc --utc # set hardware clock from system clock (and use UTC) hwclock --hctosys # set system clock from hardware clock
Completely manual usage:
hwclock --set --date="2012-04-19 16:45:05" --utc hwclock --set --date="2012-04-19 16:45:05" --localtime
The current time zone of the hardware clock is specified in /etc/adjtime
, or UTC if the file is missing.
Changing the system clock (time + date)
date -d "2012-12-12T12:00" # print a date date -s "2012-12-12T12:00" # set a date + time as system time date +%T -s "14:30" # only set the system time (not the date)
The string format interpreted as date is extremely versatile and described in info date
, here are some examples:
date -d @1234567890 # Unix time / seconds since epoch date -d "2014-01-01" # ISO 8601 date -d "next Thursday" date -d "2 years" # now + 2 years date -d "2 years ago"
The output format can be adjusted with format strings:
date +'%s' # Unix time / seconds since epoch date +'%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S' # in ISO 8601
The best idea is to set the hardware clock via BIOS and let an NTP daemon take care of adjusting the system time. Ubuntu preinstalls ntpdate
, but the more advanced ntpd
is also available.
NTP synchronizes your system time with the ones from time servers (if it's not off by more than a few minutes). The NTP pool at pool.ntp.org
provides a fail-safe address because it actually uses many different servers behind this address.
ntpdate
is the standard tool to synchronize the software clock with NTP once. It requires a server to be provided at each call.
ntpdate-debian
is a slightly modified version that can be configured via /etc/default/ntpdate
. Ubuntu executes this program every time a network becomes available, see /etc/network/if-up.d/ntpdate
.
sudo ntpdate-debian # get NTP time from the configured server sudo ntpdate pool.ntp.org # get NTP time from a reliable cluster of NTP servers
The ntp daemon always runs in the background and can correct drifts slowly to avoid jumps in time.
It can be configured (e.g. change the NTP servers) via /etc/ntp.conf
.
ntpq
can query the status of the ntp daemon:
ntpq -p # print ntp peers & their state
The system time zone is set in two places (which should match):
/etc/localtime
contains the binary time zone specification (one of the files in /usr/share/zoneinfo
)/etc/timezone
contains the human-readable POSIX timezone name
tzselect
is an interactive program to let a user retrieve the appropriate POSIX timezone string for his location, e.g. “Europe/Vienna” for Austria. It does not change the time zone!
tzconfig
was used to set the timezone, but on modern Debian / Ubuntu systems we use dpkg-reconfigure
, which will run through the same questions as tzselect
:
dpkg-reconfigure tzdata
This program copies the appropriate (binary) time zone info file from /usr/share/zoneinfo
to /etc/localtime
.
Set the environment variable TZ
to the appropriate timezone name, e.g. in ~/.profile
TZ='Europe/Vienna'; export TZ
Quickly fix the system time & timezone:
dpkg-reconfigure tzdata # set proper timezone ntpdate-debian # get current time via NTP hwclock --systohc --utc # set hardware clock to (UTC) time retrieved from via NTP
Locales enable internationalization and define e.g. number formats (LC_NUMERIC) or date and time formats (LC_TIME).
The default is set with LANG, which can be overriden with the more specialized LC_*. LC_ALL overrides everything else, and should not be set except for the execution of commands.
locale # print current locale settings locale -a # print names of available locales locale -k LC_TIME # print current formats for a locale setting locale charmap # print currently used charmap (e.g. UTF-8)
All available locales are listed in /usr/share/i18n/SUPPORTED
. To use a locale it must be generated first with locale-gen
:
locale-gen de_AT.UTF-8
Note, that locale-gen fails silently if an invalid locale is given. (return code 1)
Locale variables are set in the configuration file /etc/default/locale
. A great configuration for using the English language with ISO date/time format and european paper size (A4) is:
LANG="en_US.UTF-8" LC_TIME="en_DK.UTF-8" LC_MEASUREMENT="en_DK.UTF-8" LC_PAPER="de_AT.UTF-8"
Note, that some programs ignore the settings in LC_PAPER and use /etc/papersize
instead. Set a consistent format there as well, e.g. a4
.
Note for KDE: the locale configuration tool will create the file ~/.kde/env/setlocale.sh
, which overrides /etc/default/locale
- delete undesired settings there.
To set a certain locale for one command only:
LC_TIME="en_DK.UTF-8" locale -k LC_TIME # use specific locale for one command
It may also be useful to override all locale settings and use the most basic locale available on every machine: C
or C.UTF-8
:
LC_ALL=C.UTF-8 locale -k LC_TIME LC_ALL=C.UTF-8 ssh host
In order to use a hard disk to install an operating system or store files it has to be
A special case are swap partitions (or files), which is basically very very slow RAM (memory) on the hard disk.
The Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) defines a common directory structure for Unix based OSes, which is important to be kept in mind during partitioning.
outline the basics:
The programs fdisk
and cfdisk
can create a / alter the partition table in PCDOS format for disks up to 2TB.
Common partition IDs are: 5=extended, 7=ntfs, 82=swap, 83=linux.
fdisk /dev/sda # start partitioning of /dev/sda fdisk -l /dev/sda # list all partitions of /dev/sda cfdisk /dev/sda # use a curses GUI for paritioning
For disks bigger than 2TB typically GPT - the GUID_Partition_Table - is used, which can be created with GNU parted
. Read this good tutorial about disks with 4096 byte sectors
mke2fs # create an ext2/3/4 file system mkfs # create a file system (ext and non-ext file systems) mkfs.ext4 # mkfs.* are frontends that call the relevant programs to create a specific file system
The following two commands can be used to create an ext4 file system. The parameter '-n' can be used to simulate the action without actually changing anyting.
mke2fs -t ext4 /dev/sda1 mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1
tune2fs -l <device> # show stats & current value of options tune2fs -L <name> <device> # set volume name tune2fs -i <interval> <device> # interval between checks n[d|w|m], by default in days, e.g. 6m tune2fs -c <count> <device> # maximum mount-count between checks
The mount
command and various files can be used to inquire the currently mounted devices and swap spaces.
mount # show currently mounted devices cat /etc/mtab # .. cat /proc/mounts # .. cat /proc/swaps # show currently used swap spaces
The main configuration file is /etc/fstab
:
cat /etc/fstab # configuration of filesystems to mount (specifies location, file system type,..) mount -a # mount all devices in /etc/fstab except the ones set to 'noauto' umount -a # unmount all devices in /etc/fstab except the ones set to 'noauto'
The previously mentioned invocations and config files cover most of the daily use cases. More advanced use cases follow.
mount -t iso9660 /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
mount -o loop -t iso9660 foo.iso /mnt/mountpoint
Mount an ext4 partition with some restrictive mount options. See FILESYSTEM INDEPENDENT MOUNT OPTIONS in man mount
for an explanation of all mount options.
mount -t ext4 -o nodev,noexec,noatime,nosuid /dev/sda1 /mnt/mountpoint
This is e.g. useful for using fsck
on a partition. Note, that this overwrites all mount options if the partition has been mounted manually - if there is an entry in /etc/fstab
, ro will be added to the mount options specified there.
mount -o remount,ro /dev/sda1 /mnt/mountpoint
When combining -a
with -t
all file systems of a certain type in /etc/fstab
can be selected (except if they are noauto of course). In this example we force (-f) unmount all cifs filesystems (Windows / Samba shares) and then mount them again.
umount -a -f -t cifs mount -a -t cifs
The family of fsck.*
(e.g. fsck.ext4
) commands is used to check & monitor filesystems.
Note: file systems must be unmounted or at least mounted read-only, because fsck
does not only check but also repairs the file system! Repairing a mounted file system can lead to severe problems.
fsck -N <device> # dry run (only shows you what would be done) on a device, e.g. /dev/sda1 fsck -ARM # check all file systems in /etc/fstab, except root, and except all mounted ones fsck -t ext4 -p <device> # check a device with an ext4 filesystem and repair errors automatically (p=preen); same as fsck.ext4 -p
These two tools can be used to further inspect your ext file systems, but be careful with debufs
!
debugfs <device> # ext2/ext3/ext4 interactive file system debugger (use with care!) dumpe2fs <device> # dump ext2/ext3/ext4 filesystem information (super block & group information of blocks)
Badblocks is a utility to check disk health with either the non-destructive read-mode or the destructive (all data will be erased) write-mode.
sudo badblocks -wvs /dev/sdb
With smartctl
(contained in the package smartmontools
) you can check the health status of a hard disk.
sudo smartctl /dev/sda -H # quick summary to see if HDD is OK or not sudo smartctl /dev/sda -a # print all SMART information
When printing all information the attributes are shown. VALUE and WORST should be above THRESH for the disk to be OK.
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds: ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 1305 3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0027 141 141 021 Pre-fail Always - 3916 ...
swapon -s # see currently active swap partitions
mkswap # set up swap (on a device or in a file, which must be created with dd)
For 'mounting' swap partitions or files extra commands are used:
swapon -a # activate all swap partitions in /etc/fstab (except those with noauto set) swapoff -a # deactivate ..
Hint: use swapoff
to move all memory back into RAM and to get a responsive system quickly (after the process that caused swapping is closed).
Create a 64M swap file in the current directory & check that it's activated
dd if=/dev/zero of=swapfile bs=1024 count=65536 chmod 600 swapfile mkswap swapfile swapon swapfile cat /etc/swaps
Runlevels were used in older distros to only partially start up the system. From single-user mode without networking, to multi-user mode with networking. Nowadays most distros don't use many different runlevels much anymore.
Runlevels:
The previous and current runlevel can be checked with runlevel
. N stands for no previous runlevel.
Switching runlevels is done with telinit
. In most distros init
does the same.
telinit 2 # switch to runlevel 2 telinit 6 # reboot system
With shutdown
reboots or shutdowns can be timed with either 'now', +<minutes> (e.g. +10), or hh:mm (e.g. 19:20).
Other logged in users will be notified of a (pending) shutdown, no logins are possible five minutes before shutdown, and it is possible to specify a customized (optional) message.
shutdown -h now # shutdown (halt or power off) now shutdown -P now # shutdown and power off now shutdown -r +10 "message" # reboot in 10 minutes and send message shutdown -k 20:00 "possible power outage at 8" # 'fake' a shutdown. messages are sent, but no shutdown will be done shutdown -c # cancel pending shutdown
An alternative to the shutdown command are the following commands:
reboot halt # shut down OS, but do not power off (via ACPI) poweroff # shut down OS and power off (what you usually want)
The binary /sbin/init
is started first (hardcoded into the kernel) and therefore the mother of all processes.
It starts all required processes during boot.
The 'original' Sysvinit is replaced in most distros as of 2013 with init systems that are event based (asynchronous).
Configuration via
/etc/init.d # directory with startup scripts (nowadays still: legacy scripts) /etc/inittab # set default runlevel
Upstart is a Ubuntu-only event-based replacement for the original init daemon and brings some new tools and commands, but was replaced with systemd since Ubuntu 15.05.
Init scripts and scripts for services are contained in /etc/init
. Services can be controlled like this:
service myservice start # equivalent: start myservice service myservice stop # equivalent: stop myservice service myservice reload # equivalent: reload myservice service myservice restart # equivalent: restart myservice service --status-all # get status of all services
Modern event-based replacement for init
, used by most distributions in 2015.
Init scripts are represented as service units in the form of .service
files, which can be found in /lib/systemd/system
(preinstalled) and /etc/systemd/system
(to be edited by the admin).
Example of a .service
file with the the three sections:
[Unit] Description=Foo [Service] ExecStart=/usr/sbin/foo-daemon [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target
Starting and stopping services works as follows:
systemctl start myservice systemctl stop myservice systemctl status myservice
Logs of a service can be accessed via journalctl
:
journalctl -u myservice
The Linux way of (un)installing programs.
Quick overview of commands & config files involved in Debian:
dpkg # simple utility to handle single packages apt-get # install / remove / update packages (uses dpkg) apt-mark # hold / unhold packages (aka apt pinning) apt-cache # cache for searching packages dselect # curses GUI for selecting and installing programs aptitude # curses GUI and command line tool that unites apt-get, apt-cache and dselect cat /etc/apt/sources.list # main config file containing addresses for package sources ls /etc/apt/sources.list.d # directory with more config files containing addresses for package sources
When not using aptitude
the following commands are tpically used. Otherwise simply replace apt-get
and apt-cache
with aptitude
.
apt-get update # synchronize list of available packages with server apt-cache search # search for a package (partial name is OK) apt-get upgrade # upgrade upgradable packages (not if new dependencies are requird) apt-get dist-upgrade # upgrade upgradable packages (and install new dependencies if required) apt-get install # install packages (exact name required) apt-get remove # remove packages (exact name required) but leave config files apt-get purge # remove packages (exact name required) and config files
Some more advanced usage examples:
apt-cache depends package # show dependencies (and suggestions) for a package dpkg -l # list names of all installed packages dpkg -L package # list all files (full path) contained in a package dpkg -s package # show status of package (e.g. is it installed or not) dpkg -S file # show packages that contain this file (matching by name)
alien
is a package converter that can convert .deb
packages into .rpm
and vice versa.
There is only one relevant tool for package managemnt in Red Hat: rpm
. It has five basic modes:
rpm -i # --install rpm -U # --upgrade rpm -e # --uninstall (erase) rpm -V # verify rpm -q # --query
Flags for (un)installing and upgrading:
--force # force install/update, same as --install --force --no-deps # (un)install/update even if dependencies are not satisfied --test # just test and don't make any changes
Flags for querying:
-a or --all # list all installed packages -f or --file # list the package a file belongs to -l or --list # list all files in a package -i # information about an installed package -p <package>.rpm # query regarding the specific package-file
Some more advanced usage examples:
rpm -qR package # show dependencies for a package rpm -qa # list names of all installed packages rpm -qlp package.rpm # list all files (full path) contained in a package rpm -qf file # show packages that contain this file (matching by name)
rpm packages can not be unzipped directly, but this can be achieved by using rpm2cpio
and cpio
. The following command extracts an rpm into the current directory:
rpm2cpio package.rpm | cpio -idmv
The 'yellowdog updater, modified' aka yum
is a package management tool used in many distributions based on .rpm packages. Its usage strongly resembles aptitude
:
check-update # synchronize list of available packages with server yum search # search for a package (partial name is OK) yum update # update all packages yum install # install packages (exact name required) yum remove # remove packages (exact name required) but leave config files
yumdownloader
downloads RPMs from Yum repositories. The relevant configuration file is /etc/yum.conf
and the files in /etc/yum.repos.d
.
Root always has uid 0, uids from 1 until e.g. 499 (RHEL) or 999 (Debian) are reserved for system use. Uids above that are used for regular users, e.g. 1000 for the first user on Debian.
The same goes for gid: root has gid 0,..
Every user has at least one group, the first group being the primary group.
User details are stored in /etc/passwd
. The columns (separated by colons) are:
/bin/false
if no login should be possible)Example:
markus:x:1000:1000:markus,,,:/home/markus:/bin/bash
Normally the password is not stored in /etc/passwd
, but in /etc/shadow
, which should only be readable by root.
/etc/shadow
consists of these colon-separated fields:
All fields except the first two can be left blank, thereby disabling password aging.
Example (with shortened password hash):
markus:$6$d0uFLcE...AMuZRV0:16560:0:99999:7:::
Get a human-readable representation of the expiration information with chage
:
chage -l user
/etc/group
consists of these colon-separated fields:
As for users the group password is normally not stored in /etc/group
.
Note, that the members in these two files are stored redundantly and must match.
/etc/gshadow
consist of these colon-separated fields:
Preferrably edit these important files with these tools to avoid concurrent editing and broken files (e.g. due to forgetting a colon).
vipw # edit /etc/passwd vipw -s # edit /etc/shadow vigr # edit /etc/group vigr -s # edit /etc/gshadow
With getent
you can “get entries from Name Service Switch libraries”, e.g. the passwd, group, shadow, gshadow databases. (quite similar to just greping the respective files)
getent passwd username
This directory serves as a template for home directories. When a new user account is created, the home directory will be populated with the contents of /etc/skel
.
The three standard tools are useradd
, userdel
and usermod
.
useradd name # create a new user (without password; home directory is set, but not created) useradd -m name # also create a home directory (with contents of /etc/skel) useradd -s /bin/bash name # assign a shell useradd -r name # create a system user (uid <1000) useradd -g gid -u uid name # override default gid and uid (-o even allows uid-duplicates)
The password can be set with passwd
or the -p
option (but -p
already requires the encrypted form to be stored in /etc/shadow)
userdel name # delete a user userdel -f -r name # force delete (even when logged in) a user and delete its home directory (-r)
usermod
allows to change the parameters also available in useradd
(and more):
usermod -u uid -g gid name # change uid and gid for an existing user (ownerships in home directory are adapted as well) usermod -d /home/newhome name # change home directory (created if it does not exist) usermod -md /home/newhome name # change home directory and move all files from the old home usermod -l newname name # rename / change login of a user (does __not__ change the home directory)
The tools groupadd
, groupdel
and groupmod
work similar to the user-counterparts:
groupadd gname # create a new group groupadd -r gname # create a system group (uid <1000) groupadd -g gid gname # override default gid (-o even allows uid-duplicates)
groupdel gname # delete a group
groupmod -g gid -n newgname gname # change gid and name of a group
View and add groups for a user:
groups user # show all groups a user is part of usermod -a -G group1,group2 user # add user to comma-separated group(s)
Remove or exlicitily set groups for a user:
gpasswd -d user gname # remove user from group usermod -G "gname1,gname2" user # explicitly set comma-separated group(s) for a user vigr # open /etc/groups in vi (locks the file & enforces correct format on save)
Groups can be assigned a password, which is stored in /etc/gshadow
(or /etc/group
). Group membership can then be temporarily acquired.
gpasswd gname # assign password to a group newgrp gname # temporarily get membership for group
Group administrators are allowed to change/remove the group password and add or remove users to the group. They can be assigned as follows:
gpasswd -A "user1,user2" gname # assign administrator users to group
Locking is done (by convention) by prepending a '!' to the password in either /etc/passwd
or /etc/shadow
, or one of these two commands:
usermod -L user passwd -l user
Or by deleting the currently set password (this can not be undone)
passwd -d user
usermod -U user passwd -u user
The fields in /etc/shadow
regarding passwords age or account expiration can be manipulated with chage
.
After a password has been expired the user is forced to chage it at the next login. If an inactivity period is specified accounts with expired passwords will be locked after this period.
chage -m min -M max user # set minimum and maximum nr of days between password changes chage -I days user # set inactivity period in days chage -d 2014-01-01 user # manually set date of last passwort change
An account can also have a fixed expire date:
chage -E 2014-01-01 user # set expiration date of account, afterwards no login is possible (accuracy = days)
Passing -1 as value will erase the limits.
With the bash built-in ulimit
resources allocated to a user can be limited for the current shell.
ulimit -a # show all limits for the current user
With '-S' soft and '-H' (or no extra parameter) hard limits can be set. Soft limits can be raised up to the hard limit by the user. The hard limit can only lowered by the user.
ulimit -S -u 100 # set a soft limit for the maximum nr of processes ulimit -n 50 # set soft & hard limit for the maximum nr of open files
A good place to set ulimit
s is /etc/profile
, or in the config file /etc/security/limits.conf
, where the configuration can be specific to a user or group (prepend @):
#<domain> <type> <item> <value> user hard nproc 100 @group hard nofile 50
sudo
allows a normal user to execute commands as other user (also super user), with su
the current user id can be changed to become super user (a root shell).
sudo passwd otheruser # set password for otheruser usint root privileges sudo -u www-data mkdir dir # create a directory as user www-data
Who (or which groups) are allowed to do so is specified in /etc/sudoers
, which must be edited with visudo
and roughly follows the format user hostlist=(userlist) commands
:
Simple example:
# User privilege specification root ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL # Members of the admin group may gain root privileges %admin ALL=(ALL) ALL # Allow members of group sudo to execute any command %sudo ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL
The format is quite complex, have a look in man 5 sudoers
.
#On the ALPHA machines, user john may su to anyone except root # but he is not allowed to specify any options to the su(1) command. john ALPHA = /usr/bin/su [!-]*, !/usr/bin/su *root*
The programs w
and who
can show who is currently logged into the system.
w # print users who are logged in and their processes who # print information about users who are logged in who -b # time and date of last system boot who -r # print current runlevel
last
prints the last log ins (user, time,..).
last # all recent logins last username # last logins of user last tty1 # last logins on tty1
fuser
and lsof
(list open files) can check which users or processes opened a file, file systems or ports.
Note, that these programs should be run as root to get a full report (especially when checking ports)!
lsof # list all files opened by active processes fuser /tmp/file # show process ids accessing a file fuser -v /tmp/file # show verbose info (including user, command,..) lsof /tmp/file lsof +D /tmp # list all processes that have opened a file in /tmp fuser -m -u /mnt/usb1 # show process ids (and the user name: -u) accessing a mount point / file system lsof /mnt/usb1 fuser -n tcp 80 # show process ids accessing port 80 (equivalent: fuser 80/tcp) lsof -i tcp@localhost:80 lsof -p 1000 # show files opened by process with id 1000 lsof -u markus # show files opened by user markus
fuser
can also kill the identified processes, which can be useful e.g. when trying to unmount a file system.
fuser -m -k /mnt/usb1 # send SIGKILL (default for -k) to all processes accessing /mnt/usb1 fuser -m -k -SIGTERM /mnt/usb1 # send SIGTERM (see fuser -l for supported signals)
A normal user can not use usermod
, but has the following possibilites.
passwd # interactively change password
chsh # start interactively chsh -s /bin/bash # change login shell
Check e.g. the account or password expiry date with:
passwd -S # oneliner chage -l user # more verbose
Before login the contents of /etc/issue
are printed.
After login users can be greeted with a message of the day in /etc/motd
.
The command wall
can send warning messages to all users logged into a machine.
wall The system has to be shut down in 5 minutes, please save your work and log out. <Ctrl D>
In case an administrator wants to temporarily forbid logins of other users the file /etc/nologin
can be created. It allows no other users than root to log in (also via SSH,..). Note, that this is dangerous and not recommended if root has no password set (as per default in Ubuntu).
Debian provides two convenience programs for adding and deleting users and groups.
However, for further tweaking of users and groups the default usermod
tool must be used.
By default adduser
and addgroup
automatically create fully usable accounts (e.g. by creating a new home directory), asks for a password and a detailed description and assures that the gid and uid conform to Debian standards. The defaults can be changed in /etc/adduser.conf
.
These simple invocations create normal (non-system) users or groups:
adduser name addgroup name
The description field in /etc/passwd
is to sused tore these properties (comma-separated):
adduser --system --disabled-login name
These tools remove users and groups by removing the entries from the relevant config files, but leaves the home directory intact (by default - see /etc/deluser.conf
).
deluser name delgroup name
Home directories can however be removed or archived by providing a simple argument
deluser --remove-home name # remove home directory and mail spool deluser --remove-all-files name # remove all files owned by user (system-wide)
When either the home or all files are removed a backup archive can be created as well:
deluser --backup --backup-to /tmp --remove-home name
Log in to a remote host with ssh username@host
.
To use authentication keys instead of passwords:
ssh-keygen # generate your public and private key (~/.ssh/id_rsa) ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub username@host # copy it to the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys on the remote machine