How to create a user with root privileges in bash?

Question

I have run the following commands:

sudo groupadd -r testgroup
sudo useradd -g testgroup -M -r testuser

Notice the -r option, which according to the man page:

-r
Create a system account.

Assuming I have a user account with root privileges, I then run:

sudo -u testuser cat /dev/input/mouse0

However, I get:

cat: /dev/input/mouse0: Permission denied

Running the same command as root provides the expected output (garbled output from the mouse driver).

How can I create a user with root privileges?

possible duplicate of How can I add a new user as sudoer using the command line? — BuZZ-dEE, Mar 13 '15 at 13:31

score 22 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 02 '13 at 13:19

22

Haven't tried it but this should create a new user and add them to the sudo group, which if your /etc/sudoers is as default, should mean they're allowed to use sudo with their password (just like the standard first user):

sudo adduser --group sudo newusername

If you've already created the user, you can just run:

sudo adduser existing_user sudo

man adduser will show you some of the other billion permutations and combinations of arguments this tool has.

Note: If you use Ubuntu 11.10 or older, you should use the admin group instead of sudo.

edited Apr 02 '13 at 13:19

Eliah Kagan

117,780

answered Mar 30 '11 at 23:05

Oli

293,335

Ah... no wonder it wasn't working. – Nathan Osman Mar 31 '11 at 00:11
For 12.04 (Precise) and newer: The default group for root privileges is sudo but admin will work too. However, new installs won't have the admin group created at all. – papukaija Dec 27 '12 at 00:29
4

On Ubuntu 14.04 I get adduser: Specify only one name in this mode. when executing sudo adduser --group sudo ubuntu – Yuriy Nakonechnyy Jul 30 '14 at 17:39
Also on Ubuntu 12.04.5 LTS it does not work. – BuZZ-dEE Mar 13 '15 at 11:00
As @Yura said, in response to the command adduser --group sudo username is the message adduser: Specify only one name in this mode. This is probably a failure because subsequently it is possible to add that same user via the command adduser username. This was observed on 16.04. The way to add a new user as a sudoer might require 2 commands: adduser username && adduser username sudo. – H2ONaCl Feb 09 '17 at 00:57

score 3 · Answer 2 · edited Nov 06 '12 at 16:33

3

I found some sites where they do the: sudo adduser paul admin

but my linux does not have the admin group so I use:

sudo adduser paul sudo

edited Nov 06 '12 at 16:33

devav2

36,312

answered Nov 06 '12 at 01:53

Papi

31

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 30 '11 at 23:54

2

"System account" just means that the user will get an UID (user identifier) from a reserved range, it doesn't give any extra permissions. The right way to elavate privileges is to use sudo, as described by Oli.

answered Mar 30 '11 at 23:54

Adam Byrtek

9,811

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 29 '18 at 21:53

0

The following worked on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS:

sudo adduser robert && sudo adduser robert sudo

Creates the user and adds him/er to the sudoer list

answered Jun 29 '18 at 21:53

Justas

171

score 0 · Answer 5 · edited Jun 23 '21 at 10:57

0

sudo usermod -a newuser -G sudo

edited Jun 23 '21 at 10:57

BeastOfCaerbannog

14,585

answered Jun 22 '21 at 19:13

Zaza Parkadze

1

How to create a user with root privileges in bash?

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