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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?

Marco Ceppi
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Nathan Osman
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  • possible duplicate of [How can I add a new user as sudoer using the command line?](http://askubuntu.com/questions/7477/how-can-i-add-a-new-user-as-sudoer-using-the-command-line) – BuZZ-dEE Mar 13 '15 at 13:31

5 Answers5

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.

Eliah Kagan
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Oli
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  • 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
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    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
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
devav2
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Papi
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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.

Adam Byrtek
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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

Justas
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0
sudo usermod -a newuser -G sudo
BeastOfCaerbannog
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Zaza Parkadze
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