Creating a user

This guide creates a user suitable for deploying and running an application, gives it sudo access, and adds it to a couple of groups.

These commands change system state, so run them with sudo. See Permissions.

1. Preview the change

Use --dry-run to see what will happen first:

sudo abstrax user add deploy --grant-sudo --create-home --shell=/bin/bash --dry-run

2. Create the user

sudo abstrax user add deploy --grant-sudo --create-home --shell=/bin/bash

Expected output:

User deploy created.
  Home:   /home/deploy
  Shell:  /bin/bash
  UID:    1001
  Groups: deploy, sudo
  Sudo:   granted

If you also want a password, add --password, which prompts for it securely:

sudo abstrax user add deploy --grant-sudo --password

If the user already exists, Abstrax reports a warning rather than failing.

3. Add the user to extra groups

To let the user work with web files and Docker, for example:

sudo abstrax user add-groups deploy www-data,docker

To replace the full set of supplementary groups instead of adding to them:

sudo abstrax user set-groups deploy www-data,deploy

4. Confirm the result

abstrax user info deploy

  Username:    deploy
  UID:         1001
  GID:         1001
  Home:        /home/deploy
  Shell:       /bin/bash
  Groups:      deploy, sudo, www-data, docker
  Sudo:        yes
  Locked:      no

You can also list users and filter to those with sudo:

abstrax user list --sudo

Common follow-ups