Chapter 14. Managing Users

IN THIS CHAPTER

• User Accounts

• Managing Groups

• Managing Users

• Managing Passwords

• Granting System Administrator Privileges to Regular Users

• The User Login Process

• Disk Quotas

• Reference

One of the most important things you need to learn while using Fedora is effective user administration. Whether you are setting up a box for use just by yourself, sharing it among a family of five, or even working with a machine that has to handle several thousand different users, it is important that you understand how to effectively assign user permissions and lock down the areas you want to protect. Equally important is the ability to fine-tune user access rights, to enable people to do what they need to do, and not necessarily what they want to!

Managing users includes managing home directories and settings that are unique to each user. You also have to examine how much of the overall system you want to give the users access to, as well as establish good password practice. We will cover all these tasks among others, which will teach you how to effectively manage the users of your system. We will also take a look at the super-user account so that you can understand why it is so important and also how to let others access some, if not all, of the super-user's power.