Book Image

Mastering Ubuntu Server - Fourth Edition

By : Jay LaCroix
4.8 (5)
Book Image

Mastering Ubuntu Server - Fourth Edition

4.8 (5)
By: Jay LaCroix

Overview of this book

Ubuntu Server is taking the server world by storm - and for a good reason! The server-focused spin of Ubuntu is a stable, flexible, and powerful enterprise-class distribution of Linux with a focus on running servers both small and large. Mastering Ubuntu Server is a book that will teach you everything you need to know in order to manage real Ubuntu-based servers in actual production deployments. This book will take you from initial installation to deploying production-ready solutions to empower your small office network, or even a full data center. You'll see examples of running an Ubuntu Server in the cloud, be walked through set up popular applications (such as Nextcloud), host your own websites, and deploy network resources such as DHCP, DNS, and others. You’ll also see how to containerize applications via LXD to maximize efficiency and learn how to build Kubernetes clusters. This new fourth edition updates the popular book to cover Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, which takes advantage of the latest in Linux-based technologies. By the end of this Ubuntu book, you will have gained all the knowledge you need in order to work on real-life Ubuntu Server deployments and become an expert Ubuntu Server administrator who is well versed in its feature set.
Table of Contents (26 chapters)
24
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25
Index

Managing Users and Permissions

In the previous chapter, we set up our very own Ubuntu Server installation, and we can now learn how to maintain it, starting with a look at managing who is able to use our server.

As administrators of Ubuntu servers, users can be your greatest asset and also your biggest headache. During your career, you’ll add countless new users, manage their passwords, remove their accounts when they leave the company, and grant or remove access to resources across the network. Even on servers on which you’re the only user, you’ll still find yourself managing user accounts, since even system processes run as users. To be successful at managing Linux servers, you’ll also need to know how to manage permissions, create password policies, and limit who can execute administrative commands on the machine. In this chapter, we’ll work through these concepts so that you have a clear idea of how to manage users and their resources.

In particular, we will cover:

  • Understanding the purpose of users and groups
  • Understanding when to use root
  • Creating and removing users
  • Understanding the /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow files
  • Distributing default configuration files with /etc/skel
  • Switching between users
  • Managing groups
  • Managing passwords and password policies
  • Configuring administrator access with sudo
  • Setting permissions on files and directories

In the first section, we will have a quick discussion about the nature of managing users.