Adding a user in Debian

In Linux, users and groups are used to access the file system. Each file has an owner user and a group from which users can access it. This is a very simple yet flexible privilege system. Users are used not only for people working on the PC but also for running processes, allowing you to limit their sphere of influence. Let's see how to add new users to Debian.

Adding them using the GUI

The easiest way to add new users is through the GUI. To do this, open the System Preferences utility, go to Details, then open Users:

First of all you need to click the Unlock button to get access to create and edit. After that, the system will ask for your password. Only after entering it, the Add User button will appear at the top of the window, click on it:

In the window of creating a new user you need to enter his name and login, as well as the password twice:

A user can create a regular user or an administrator. They differ only by one thing, administrator is added to the sudo group by default. Next, the new user will appear in the user list.

Terminal

Adding debian through the terminal is even easier than in the GUI. To create a user in the terminal you should use the adduser command. It is interactive and you will have to answer a few questions while creating the user.

For example, to create the losst user, run:

$ sudo adduser losst

Enter the password for the new account twice:

Now you can fill in the full name, his workplace information, phone number and other information you need:

If you want to create a sudo user in Debian, you need to add the newly created user to the sudo group.

For example:

$ usermod -aG sudo losst

Note that the a option is mandatory here, otherwise the command will replace all user groups with sudo and the user may lose access to some system resources. You can check if the user has been added to this group by running:

$ getent group sudo

Creating a Debian user is not a difficult task and can be done either through the terminal or through the GUI.