users and groups

[Karl F. Larsen]

Brian Astill wrote:
> I've examined "man adduser" "man adduser.conf" and the contents 
> of /etc/adduser.conf /etc/group and /etc/passwd.
> Unfortunately I still can't see how to do what I want to do.  
> <sob>
>   
    Your making it all too hard. Unix/Linux is designed to be a 
multiuser Operating system and every user can be controlled by the group 
you put them in.

    Read man chmod and chown and see that you can change each users 
ability at will.

    It all starts when you make a new user. This user will have a 
password so only he (and you as root) can enter his desktop. It is just 
like yours but with nothing added.

    If you want this user to be able to use another Desktop he must be 
given the Group that can use this. You do this with  addgroup as root.

    On Ubuntu it is different because everyone can use "sudo" and become 
root. It must be possible to remove this capability from the users but I 
have never done so.

    Make at least 3 new users with addusr and then just work with these 
users. You can login as one of the users and such. Great fun. This all 
works well.

Karl


> A number of users are to use the same machine.  That isn't the 
> problem.
>
> I want to set up another home directory which all can read (and 
> preferably few can write).  That directory might be owned by 
> root, group allofus.  Seems to me I need to have all my users in 
> group allofus as well as their personal group as part of the 
> setup.  BUT there doesn't seem to be a way of putting a user in 
> more than one group.
> EXTRA_GROUPS in adduser.conf seems to be designed for access to 
> various peripherals.  Maybe I'm missing something.
>
> Advice would be welcome. 
>
>
>   


-- 

	Karl F. Larsen, AKA K5DI
	Linux User
	#450462   http://counter.li.org.
   PGP 4208 4D6E 595F 22B9 FF1C  ECB6 4A3C 2C54 FE23 53A7