Unix User Administration

This page is a placeholder for a future tutorial.User and Group Administration

ADDING USERS

• COMMAND LINE
  • /sbin

Solaris users have

• Login Name
• Password
• UID 1001-60000
  (Higher UID's are incompatible with some Solaris features)
• Group Memberships
  • Should be assigned initially to 'staff' (group 10)
  • Should also be assigned to groups as per permissions neccessary for that box.
• Line Entries in
  • /etc/passwd
  • /etc/shadow
  • /etc/group

Login Name

• Unique systemwide.
• Two to eight characters long.
• First character must be a letter.
• Must contain at least 1 lowercase
• Letters or numbers, a period, underscore or hyphen
• Cannot contain spaces

Passwords

STRONG passwords contain uppercase, lowercase and numbers

AUTHENTICATION FILES

• /etc/password (locally administrated boxes)
  • One line per user entry
  • File's Field Format - Flat text file with colon (':') separated fields:
    • login name
    • encrypted password (usually populated with an 'x' to indicate looking in /etc/shadow for encrypted password info).
    • User ID (UID)
    • Primary Group ID (GID) - additional groups in /etc/group
    • Comment
    • Path to users home directory
    • login shell (absolute path)
    • password aging parameter
• /etc/shadow (locally administrated boxes using encrypted passwords)
  • Used with /etc/passwd
  • Colon separated fields
  • One line per user entry
  • File's FIeld Format
    • login name
    • password
    • last change
    • minimum days between changes
    • max days between changes
    • number of warning days before a change is required
    • numbe of inactive days before account is deactivated
    • date on which the account expires