{"id":8286,"date":"2021-07-15T10:35:24","date_gmt":"2021-07-15T10:35:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/linuxways.net\/?p=8286"},"modified":"2021-07-15T10:35:24","modified_gmt":"2021-07-15T10:35:24","slug":"usermod-command-with-examples","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/linuxways.net\/de\/centos\/usermod-command-with-examples\/","title":{"rendered":"Usermod Command with Examples"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Linux usermod command is a command-line utility that allows you to modify a user\u2019s attributes on a Linux system. Such attributes include the groups that a user belongs to, login directory, password, and so on. In this guide, we showcase some of the usermod commands that you can use to change a regular user\u2019s properties.<\/p>\n

Usermod Syntax<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The usermod command takes the following syntax:<\/p>\n

$ usermod options username<\/strong><\/pre>\n
Adding a regular user to a Group<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Probably the common use case of the usermod<\/strong> command is adding or placing a user in another group. By default, a primary group is assigned to the user upon creation of the user account. Additionally, you can add the user to another group. To achieve this , use the -a -G<\/strong> ir simply -aG<\/strong> in the syntax shown:<\/p>\n
$ usermod -aG group user<\/strong><\/pre>\n
In the example below, we are adding a regular user bob<\/strong> to the sudo<\/strong> group.<\/p>\n
$ usermod -aG sudo group<\/strong><\/pre>\n
Thereafter, invoke the groups <\/strong>command to verify the groups that the user bob<\/strong> belongs to. Initially, the user only belonged to the group bob<\/strong>. After adding the user to the sudo<\/strong> group, the user now belongs to 2 groups: bob<\/strong> and sudo<\/strong> groups.<\/p>\n
$ groups bob<\/strong><\/pre>\n
<\/strong><\/p>\n
Change a user\u2019s home directory <\/strong><\/h2>\n
With usermod -d<\/strong> command, you can also change the default home directory as follows.<\/p>\n
$ usermod -d \/home\/new_directory user<\/strong><\/pre>\n
In the example below, we have changed the home directory of user bob to the \/home\/test <\/strong>directory.<\/p>\n
$ sudo usermod -d \/home\/test bob<\/strong><\/pre>\n
<\/p>\n
Change a user\u2019s login name<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Using the -l<\/strong> flag, you can change the user\u2019s login name as follows:<\/p>\n
$ sudo usermod -l robert bob <\/strong><\/pre>\n
In this example, the command changes the user\u2019s login name from bob<\/strong> to robert.<\/strong><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Change User ID ( UID ) for a user<\/strong><\/h2>\n
The -u<\/strong> flag allows you to change the User ID of the user. In the example below, we have set the UID of user robert from the default 1005 <\/strong>to 4321.<\/strong><\/p>\n
$ sudo usermod -u 4321 robert<\/strong><\/pre>\n
<\/p>\n
How to lock\/unlock a user<\/strong><\/h2>\n
In addition, you can also lock a user account using the -L <\/strong>option. In the example below, we are locking the user the user robert.<\/strong><\/p>\n
$ sudo usermod -L robert<\/strong><\/pre>\n
When you try logging in, you get an authentication error because the user is locked.<\/p>\n
To unlock the user, use the -U <\/strong>option as shown.<\/p>\n
$ sudo usermod -U robert<\/strong><\/pre>\n
<\/p>\n
Change a user\u2019s expiry date<\/strong><\/h2>\n
With the -e<\/strong> option, you can specify the expiry date of a user account. In this scenario, the expiry date of user robert <\/strong>is set to 2021-10-01.<\/strong><\/p>\n
$ sudo usermod -e 2021-10-01 robert<\/strong><\/pre>\n
To verify, use the chage<\/strong> command as follows.<\/p>\n
$ sudo chage -l robert<\/strong><\/pre>\n
<\/p>\n
Modify a user\u2019s primary group <\/strong><\/h2>\n
The primary group of the user is the default group that the user belongs to upon creation.<\/p>\n
Here, you can see that the primary group for the user bob<\/strong> is bob<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
$ id bob<\/strong><\/pre>\n
<\/p>\n
To change the primary group to another group, say games,<\/strong> run usermod<\/strong> command with the -g <\/strong>option as follows<\/p>\n
$ sudo usermod -g games bob<\/strong><\/pre>\n
Thereafter, use the id command to confirm that the group has changed.<\/p>\n
<\/strong><\/p>\n
Summary<\/strong><\/h2>\n
That was a roundup of some of the useful nature of the usermod command. As observed, it comes quite in handy in changing various properties or attributes of regular users. It\u2019s our hope that you are now competent in making the most of the usermod command.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Linux usermod command is a command-line utility that allows you to modify a user\u2019s attributes on a Linux system. Such attributes include the groups that a user…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8427,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,4,5,83,165,2],"tags":[418],"class_list":["post-8286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-centos","category-debian","category-mint","category-opensuse","category-red-hat","category-ubuntu","tag-usercommand-command"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/linuxways.net\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/linuxways.net\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/linuxways.net\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linuxways.net\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linuxways.net\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/linuxways.net\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linuxways.net\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/linuxways.net\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linuxways.net\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linuxways.net\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}