Anything related with user accounts and user management on Unix-like systems.
2
votes
2answers
598 views
SFTP with Mysql user pass instead of PAM
Is there a way for people to log onto a debian server via sftp using just mysql database table as authentaction. IE not adding a user to the system?
I know it can be done over ftp and TLS but i ...
6
votes
1answer
305 views
How to disable Switch User option from Fedora 15
Is there a way to disable the Switch User option from a locked screen on Fedora 15? I've tried this way, but no luck, since gconf-editor has no effect.
1
vote
0answers
227 views
Adding a second user to a system group? [closed]
I am trying to get around a permission issue I am having. The only reasonable option (other than ACL) is to add the user that needs access to the system group of the user that has access. Yes, the ...
6
votes
2answers
472 views
UID of a deleted account
How can an administrator find the UID of a user that's been deleted with the userdel command?
3
votes
3answers
2k views
How can I look up a username by id in linux?
The command id can be used to look up a user's uid, for example:
$ id -u ubuntu
1000
Is there a command to lookup up a username from a uid? I realize this can be done by looking at the /etc/passwd ...
4
votes
3answers
196 views
Extract dates from /etc/shadow
The file /etc/shadow has a couple date fields that are expressed as the number of days since Jan 1, 1970. Is there an easy way using to get a list of users and the calendar date of the last password ...
6
votes
4answers
4k views
can we know the password for the other users if we have root access?
If a person has root access to a particular RHEL machine, will they be able to retrieve the password of the other users?
33
votes
3answers
7k views
What are other ways to share a tmux session between two users?
I'm looking for a clean and easy way to share a tmux session with another user on the same machine. I've tried the -S socket-path option, but it requires opening up all permissions of the socket-path ...
14
votes
2answers
32k views
How to switch between users on one terminal?
I'd like to log in as a different user without logging out of the current one (on the same terminal). How do I do that?
0
votes
2answers
169 views
Best practice when installing programs in FreeBSD?
Just started with FreeBSD and I am not sure whether I need to be root to install programs or not? For example, the manual for installing X11 never says that we should issue su command.
However - it ...
2
votes
1answer
169 views
dm-crypt and LUKS password rotation
How do you protect the master key, and distribute multiple passwords for admin access? Is there a 3rd party user management tool or is this native?
0
votes
1answer
276 views
Seem to be having a problem with RealVNC with centos can't input username
Hello I seem to be having a problem with RealVNC with centos. I want to connect to a another machine, but can't because it has been "grayed out". In otherwords, I can't type in the username in the ...
9
votes
2answers
4k views
How to create a user with limited RAM usage?
So I have 4 GB RAM + 4GB swap. I want to create a user with limited ram and swap: 3 GB RAM and 1 GB swap. Is such thing possible? Is it possible to start applications with limited RAM and swap ...
1
vote
1answer
1k views
switching from user to root and revers (freebsd)
i want to make some modificaciones with root and then with my user, in fact i want to install sudo and he give me the error in the first step:
cd /usr/ports/security/sudo
make install clean
...
8
votes
1answer
2k views
How do I set a user's default .bashrc file?
On Ubuntu 10.4 I have edited the /etc/bash.bashrc file to set some variables like the command history size (HISTSIZE=5000), however if I create a new users Ubuntu by default gives them a .bashrc file ...
1
vote
2answers
686 views
Allow non-root process to access all home directories without compromising security?
Any ideas how to allow one non-root process to access (read&write) all home directories without compromising security? Normal users should not have access to each other's home directories.
All ...
2
votes
3answers
108 views
Is unix good with many users/groups?
If I have 10,000 webapps on my server and I'd like enhanced permissions and make a user for every app (/var/www/NAME will have a matching /tmp/www/NAME), will everything be fine or will problems occur ...
1
vote
2answers
2k views
Changing user in a script?
I am trying to change user in order to execute a specific command during startup. It fails silently and apparently the userchange isn't carried out as I can tell that the command isn't executed.
What ...
10
votes
11answers
903 views
Concern about logging in as root overrated?
For personal linux on my personal notebooks, I've usually set my environment to autologin as root even under X or lower runlevels. I've found my workflow is very pleasant and fast, without any ...
3
votes
2answers
125 views
Execute command on shared account login
At work our team uses a shared account "appadmin" to administer our application. At login, each one of us sources an "aliasrc" file containing his or her preferences. (aliases, display, prompt, ...).
...
2
votes
1answer
666 views
Ubuntu 11.10 Server: create user, home directory, sudo privileges: command line only
I have a rackspace server and I'm having problems with configuration. I need to lock it down and throw away the key, because right now I can only login with root to do anything substantial. I also am ...
3
votes
3answers
2k views
Can I search bash history across all users on a server?
I want to see all bash commands that have been run on a Linux server across multiple user accounts. The specific distribution I'm using is CentOS 5.7. Is there a way to globally search .bash_history ...
19
votes
5answers
873 views
Recovering from setting root's shell to a bad file
Let's say I've gone and done a silly thing, such as using 'chsh' to change the root user's shell to a bad file path. Future logins to the root account will abruptly fail, citing /bin/whatever not ...
6
votes
2answers
224 views
Using NIS without NFS
I'm configuring several computers in a lab to operate with the same login credentials shared between the computers, but without sharing the home directories. I'm considering using NIS for sharing the ...
3
votes
2answers
13k views
What user should apache and PHP be running as? What permissions should /var/www files have?
I just spun up an Ubuntu 11.10 box and then ran apt-get install apache2 php5 to install apache2 and PHP 5 on the box. Now it is functioning as a "web server" and it loads the "It Works!" page. Now I'm ...
2
votes
1answer
94 views
Fedora15/Gnome3 - Exit elevated priviliges mode
While using Fedora 14 (Gnome2), Each time if I was doing some privileged task (ex - mounting a new hard drive), I would be prompted for password and then there would appear an icon (like keys) on the ...
3
votes
1answer
266 views
How do I add a local user to a box that uses LDAP authenticaiton?
I'm working with a box that uses LDAP for user authentication. However, I need to add a local user to run some services and I don't want non-person users junking up the LDAP directory. Does anyone ...
0
votes
2answers
139 views
Can't login into webmin on a VPS
I bought a VPS server, and I have installed webmin on it.
When I want to login to webmin via:
http://88.198.196.118:10000/
it will redirect me to:
...
2
votes
1answer
696 views
How do I set the user of php-fpm to be php-user instead of www-data?
I am using php-fpm on debian with nginx for php5 support.
I would like to have php-fpm to be under the user&group php-user instead of www-data.
I thought the init.d script would have the user ...
2
votes
3answers
483 views
Killing other user processes
There are certain user environments in which we have to login during certain performance testing and and kill all the process running in that environment.
The environment names are like rswrk01, … up ...
0
votes
1answer
68 views
Are the operating systems UNIX and Linux easy to use? [closed]
I'm a new student in information security and I am learning a lot about the Operating systems. I have been focusing on Cloud security. But I have heard that I really need to get my hands on Linux or ...
5
votes
5answers
359 views
Why is it recommended to create a group and user for some applications?
Most of the time, when installing a program from source it is recommended to create a new user and a new group and give /usr/local/<myapp> the recently created user and group ownership.
Why is ...
5
votes
3answers
890 views
Changing the UID of files in /proc
In a follow up to this question about changing the UID of a user, it is recommended to change the ownership of all files on the system (this answer)
find / -uid 1000 -exec chown 5000 '{}' \+
where ...
8
votes
3answers
2k views
Add a user to the system *only if it doesn't exist*
I've been running the useradd {user} command to add users to my system, though I plan on running this in an automated environment, and it might end up being run again, even though the user already ...
2
votes
1answer
108 views
Where can I find a reference to the format of the comment field (field 5) of the /etc/passwd file?
In the /etc/passwd file on my system, the "comment" field, field 5, is inconsistent in its contents. I thought that I could extract it to get the full name of the user.
fullname=`awk -F: '$1 == name ...
8
votes
1answer
256 views
Why does the 'w' command show phantom logged in users?
On Linux (Fedora 14), the "w" command says this:
[USERNAME@PC ~] w
23:51:32 up 13 min, 7 users, load average: 0,22, 0,42, 0,34
USER TTY FROM LOGIN@ IDLE JCPU PCPU WHAT
...
1
vote
1answer
172 views
permission and user/group of a program executed through a script
I am curious, in the following scenario, what kind of permission does a shell script or Java program has (owner/group/other)?
There is a script called run.sh, and it in turn calls a Java program ...
7
votes
1answer
417 views
Lightweight virtualization on Linux with user isolation
What Linux-on-Linux virtualization technologies provide user isolation? Specifically, I want root in the virtual machine not to have any privilege on the host.
This was not the case for LXC, but was ...
2
votes
1answer
369 views
How to create a sudo user that cannot delete me?
I'm sudoer on a remote linux machine and would like to create another user with the maximum privileges, except the privilege of managing my account. I'm assuming a sudoer can delete or change the ...
1
vote
1answer
147 views
Create / Edit files in specific folder using different user / group
I want to know if the following scenario is possible.
I am a user called www-admin and I am in the group www-admin. I am also a sudoer.
I want to have all the files I create in the folder ...
2
votes
1answer
158 views
'who' has no output
I'm new to Arch Linux, and I just built my system up. But when I ran who in urxvt, I got nothing. Anyone know what's going on?
BTW. I use Slim + OpenBox. And here are parts of my configure files.
...
2
votes
2answers
122 views
How to create a new user without his own FS but with access to write to only one folder of user that creates him?
What are the command(s) to create a new user (not from su), give him the ability to write to only one folder which is some directory owned by an already existing user (the one that created him)? ...
2
votes
1answer
439 views
Deny external SSH access to a user
Is it possible to deny access to a user (in my case www-data) from outside the network? Or possibly deny this:
ssh www-data@example.com
But allow this if already logged in:
su www-data
5
votes
3answers
1k views
How can I make a user able to log in with ssh keys but not with a password?
I would like to create a user and have no password. As in you cant log in with a password. I want to add keys to its authorized_keys by using root. This is for my automated backup system.
3
votes
2answers
273 views
A question about permissions of hierarchical directories
I have some directories, with following permissions:
drwxr-xr-x 18 user1 root 4096 Oct 27 11:25 /home/test1/test2
drwxr-xr-x 24 user1 root 4096 Oct 21 08:38 /home/test1
drwxr-xr-x 492 root root 12288 ...
3
votes
1answer
2k views
Will a users password expire if I set the “maxexpired” to “-1”? [maxage not 0] - AIX
So under AIX 6, according to "lsuser" the user has the following settings:
maxexpired=-1
maxage=2
So this means that 2 weeks after the last password update of the user the password will expire, but ...
1
vote
1answer
1k views
How to show and modify user info in Ubuntu server?
If I want to put some personal information (like Full Name) to an account, how can I check it again? And how can I modify it?
On Ubuntu server. With command line only.
6
votes
4answers
304 views
How can I safely give a shell to somebody?
I have a question about giving a shell account to somebody. How safe is it? He could read /etc. How can I give a secured shell account that will only restrict the user to some bins and his own home? ...
6
votes
2answers
2k views
Why is sudo telling me my password is wrong?
I recently installed OpenBSD 4.9 in my computer, so I could learn a little bit about Unix-like operating systems. I added a new user to the system called bruno. Ok. When I use the 'sudo' command, it ...
1
vote
1answer
52 views
Is it possible to log in in a host with an user created for programs like apache or postgreSQL?
I am wondering whether is it possible to log in in a computer with users like www-data or postgres as I do with my own user. Are some users "allowed to log in" while others not? Is there any ...
