Effective Management of Groups in Linux for Beginners

Whether you run a private Linux server or work in a collaborative environment, the management of users and groups is a crucial part of your system administration. Creating and deleting groups provides flexibility and control over access rights, which is especially important when multiple users access the same machine. In this guide, I will show you step by step how to create new groups and delete existing groups.

Key Insights

• New groups are created using the command addgroup.
• Users can be added to a group with the command adduser.
• Groups can be deleted using the command delgroup.
• The configuration of groups is found in the file /etc/group.

Step-by-Step Guide

Step 1: Clear and Prepare the Screen

First, you should clear your terminal screen to have a clear view of the next steps. This can be done with the command clear. This ensures that you have a tidy view when working with the next commands.

Step 2: Create a New Group

To create a new group, use the command addgroup. In this example, we will name the group "Friends". The command is entered as follows:

addgroup Friends

Press Enter, and you will see that the group has been created with a unique group ID (GID). Linux manages the GID automatically; however, you can also set it manually.

Step 3: Add Users to the Group

Now we want to add an existing user, in this case "Kai", to the newly created group "Friends".

This command confirms that the user "Kai" is now also part of the group "Friends". If Kai does not exist yet, you must first create him with adduser Kai.

Step 4: Assign Permissions

If Kai is also to act as a system administrator, you can additionally grant him access to the "root" group. This can be done with the following command:

adduser Kai root

With this, Kai has permission to execute the sudo command and perform administrative tasks.

Step 5: Manage Groups and Users

Removing a user from a group is done with the command deluser. For example, if you want to remove Kai from the "root" group, you use:

deluser Kai root

The same principle applies to the "Friends" group. You can remove the user with the following command:

deluser Kai Friends

Now Kai is no longer part of the "Friends" group.

Step 6: Manage Groups

To completely delete a group, we use the delgroup command. For our group "Friends", this looks like:

delgroup Friends

After confirmation, you will see that the group has been removed. To verify this, you can open the file /etc/group and check.

Step 7: Check Groups in the File

To see all groups and their members, open the file /etc/group. Here you will find all groups on your Linux server. The structure is set up so that each user is associated with a group, and you can also read the group ID (GID) for each group.

Summary – Guide to Creating and Deleting Groups in Linux

Creating and deleting groups in Linux is a simple but essential skill for any system administrator. You have learned how to create groups with the command addgroup, add users with adduser, and delete groups with delgroup. To keep track of groups and their members, you can check the file /etc/group at any time.