Lab 6.1: Create users and groups with password rules

Goal

Set the defaults for new accounts, then create a small team with groups, password rules and one service account.

Before you start

Work on server1 as root (sudo -i).
This is a lab: you may use the password password for every user.

Tasks

Make sure that every new user must change the password every 90 days and gets a file WELCOME.txt in the home folder.
Create the group sales with GID 3000 and the group account.
Create the users anna and bob. Both are members of sales; bob is also a member of account. Set a password for both.
Create the user carol with the shell /sbin/nologin and no extra groups. Set a password.
The account of bob must expire on 31 December 2026.
anna must choose a new password at her next login.
Lock the password of carol.
Add anna to the group account without removing her from sales.

Check your work

#id anna; id bob; id carol
#getent group sales account
#chage -l bob | grep 'Account expires'
#chage -l anna | head -2
#passwd -S carol
#ls /home/anna

anna and bob are in sales and account; carol is only in her own group.
sales has GID 3000.
bob: Account expires Dec 31, 2026. anna: "password must be changed".
passwd -S carol shows L (locked). /home/anna has WELCOME.txt.
grep PASS_MAX_DAYS /etc/login.defs shows 90.

Hints

Show the hints

Defaults for new users: /etc/login.defs and /etc/skel/. Do this before you create the users.
groupadd -g sets the GID. useradd -G sets the extra groups.
Account expire date: chage -E or usermod -e. Force a new password: chage -d 0 or passwd -e.
Lock: passwd -l or usermod -L.
Add a group and keep the others: usermod -aG.

Solution

Show the solution

Set the defaults first.

#sed -i 's/^PASS_MAX_DAYS.*/PASS_MAX_DAYS   90/' /etc/login.defs
#echo "Welcome to the team" > /etc/skel/WELCOME.txt

Create the groups.

#groupadd -g 3000 sales
#groupadd account

Create anna and bob and set the passwords.

#useradd -G sales anna
#useradd -G sales,account bob
#echo password | passwd --stdin anna
#echo password | passwd --stdin bob

Create carol.

#useradd -s /sbin/nologin carol
#passwd carol

Create users and groups with password rules

Goal

Before you start

Tasks

Check your work

Hints

Solution

My notes

Lessons for this lab

Commands in this lab