In this tutorial, we will see how to create/remove user accounts using the terminal under Ubuntu/Linux Mint. I will also show you how to add a specific user to the “sudo” group so that you allow it to run sudo commands, but be careful in using this because granting a user root access implies complete control of your machine.
1. Adding A User Account
– You can add a user account from the terminal with this command:
sudo useradd username
Replace username with any name of your choice.
– Create the home directory for this new user with this command:
sudo mkdir /home/username
Assign now a password for this user with this command:
sudo passwd username
Grant this user ownership and access to its home directory with these two commands:
sudo chown username /home/username
sudo chgrp username /home/username
You can also create a new user account with this command:
sudo adduser username
Grant Root Priviliges To A User Account (Optional)
If you want to give a user account root privileges so that it can execute “sudo” commands, run this command:
sudo adduser username sudo
2. Removing A User Account
Open the terminal and run these commands to delete a specific user account:
sudo userdel username
sudo rm -r /home/username/
Replace username with the user account name you want to delete.
This tip is compatible with Ubuntu 12.10/12.04/Linux Mint 13 or older.