UserDrake: Managing Users and Groups on Your System

Abstract

userdrake is an advanced tool for Mandrake Linux which allows the system administrator to easily add users to the system, to remove others, to arrange users in groups, and to manage user groups in the same manner.

We will only focus on users' management here. Group management is very similar.

The Interface

Launching userdrake will display the main window (Figure 20.10), which lists the users currently defined on the system. You can switch from users to groups by activating the Groups tab next to the Users tab.

Figure 20.10. The Users List in userdrake

The Users List in userdrake

From top to bottom: a menu, some action buttons, a search field, and the users/groups tabs.

All changes have immediate effect on your local users database. If the users list is modified outside userdrake, you can refresh userdrake's window by clicking on the Refresh button.

Note

If you make changes to an already logged in user, those changes will not take effect until that user logs out and in again.

Available actions are:

Add User

Adds a new user to the system. We will detail this procedure in the section called “Adding a New User”

Add Group

Adds a new users group to the system.

Edit

Allows you to change the parameters of the selected user or group. We will detail editing users' parameters in Figure 20.12. In the case of a group you will be able to assign users to that group.

Delete

Removes the selected user or group from the system. A confirmation dialog will be shown, and in the case of a user you will be able to also remove the user's home directory and messages.

Adding a New User

We created the non-privileged user Queen Pingusa at installation time, and now we want to create a new user called Peter Pingus, and then make them both members of the cdwriter group, so that they can use the CD burner without knowing the root password (for the higher security levels).

Click on the Add User button, the dialog box to add a new user will pop up (Figure 20.11). The only required field is Login. You can also choose to add a comment in Full Name. Generally, this is the full name of the user, but you can put whatever you want. You will also want to set a password for this new user: fill both the Password and Confirm Password fields with it.

Figure 20.11. Adding a New User in The System

Adding a New User in The System

We now have two users in our list. Select one of them with your mouse, and click on the Edit button. The dialog box shown in Figure 20.12 will pop up. It allows you to modify most available user parameters.

Figure 20.12. Affect Users to a Group

Affect Users to a Group

The dialog is made of four tabs:

User data

Allows you to modify information provided at user creation.

Account info

Allows you to provide an account expiration date, after which the user will not be able to connect to the system.

Password info

Allows you to provide a password expiration delay, after which a user will have to change his password.

Groups

Shows the list of available groups, where you can select the groups to which this user should belong.

So, for our users we just need to look for the cdwriter entry and check the box associated to it. Then click on the OK button to make the changes effective.